Popular gaming platform Roblox is implementing a stricter age verification system and age-based chat restrictions, prompted by criticism over child safety and increasing global regulations.
The Persona-provided age estimation tool, announced in July, requires a video selfie for age assessment, which Roblox states is deleted post-processing. This scan is mandatory only for private messaging, not general platform use.
Children under 13 can only chat outside games with explicit parental permission. Unlike other platforms, Roblox does not encrypt private conversations, enabling monitoring and moderation.
Despite expert caution over facial age estimation tools, Matt Kaufman, Roblox’s chief safety officer, claims the system accurately estimates age within one to two years for those aged five to 25.
He stated: “But of course, there’s always people who may be well outside of a traditional bell curve. And in those cases, if you disagree with the estimate that comes back, then you can provide an ID or use parental consent in order to correct that.”
Following verification, users will be assigned to age brackets: under nine, nine to 12, 13 to 15, 16 to 17, 18 to 20, and over 21. Chat functionality will be restricted to interactions within their assigned group or similar age categories.
The new measures will be enforced in Australia, New Zealand, and the Netherlands in the first week of December, before a global rollout in early January.
This move reflects a broader trend among tech companies, including Google and Instagram, to implement robust verification systems. These efforts aim to comply with regulations and address criticism regarding minor protection.
It also comes amid a string of lawsuits against the game following accusations that it has become a “playground for predators”.
Roblox has pushed back against the allegations.
“We have rigorous safety measures in place from advanced AI models to an expertly trained team of thousands moderating our platform 24/7 for inappropriate content,” the company said in a statement. “No system is perfect and our work on safety is never done. We are constantly innovating our safety systems, including adding 100 new safeguards, such as facial age estimation, this year alone.”
Roblox says it has 111 million daily active users. The company said in an email sent last month that it implements strict safety defaults for its youngest users. It said the platform’s users under 13 cannot directly message others on Roblox, outside of games or experiences, and cannot directly message others during games or experiences unless the default setting is changed using parental controls.
The company said it has rigorous text chat filters to block inappropriate words and phrases, attempts to direct under-13 users off the platform and the sharing of personal information such as phone number or address. It does not allow user-to-user image sharing and prohibits sexual conversations, it said.
