Roblox to verify ages of all gamers who use chat and text features
Roblox says that by the end of the year it will expand its age estimation program to anyone using its chat and text features.
The gaming site, which hosts 112 million users daily, has been dogged by reports of child predators grooming victims on the platform. In 2024, it sent the U.S. National Center for Missing and Exploited Children more than 24,000 reports of suspected child sexual exploitation.
Roblox will now use a combination of facial age estimation technology, ID age verification, and verified parental consent to “provide a more accurate measure of a user's age than simply relying on what someone types in when they create an account,” according to a company blog post this week.
The gaming platform says it will use the data to build a new system that will keep minors and adults from communicating unless they are known to each other outside of the gaming environment.
In April, researchers published findings showing that children as young as 5 could talk to adults while using the platform. The study documented instances of adults communicating with children without undergoing age verification checks that worked.
In July, Roblox began using facial age recognition technology to check that gamers using its chat features were at least 13.
Suzanne Smalley
is a reporter covering privacy, disinformation and cybersecurity policy for The Record. She was previously a cybersecurity reporter at CyberScoop and Reuters. Earlier in her career Suzanne covered the Boston Police Department for the Boston Globe and two presidential campaign cycles for Newsweek. She lives in Washington with her husband and three children.