Roblox to scan users' faces to verify age amid persistent child safety concerns

Roblox, a popular gaming platform that’s faced growing scrutiny over child safety concerns, said Tuesday it will require users to verify their age if they want to chat with other players.

To do so, people will provide an ID or take a selfie through the Roblox app to prove they’re as young or old as they say they are. The verification feature estimates a person’s age, allowing the company to limit conversations between kids and adults.

Roblox, used by more than 151 million people daily, said it’s the first online gaming or communication platform to have this requirement. The move comes as the San Mateo-based company faces a flurry of lawsuits that allege Roblox hasn’t done enough to safeguard kids from pedophiles and sexual content.

Roblox said that after people verify their age, users will be able to chat only with others who are within similar age groups unless they confirm they already know the other player. Users younger than 9 will have chat features turned off by default, unless a parent provides approval after age verification to use these tools.

“This initiative is designed to provide even more age-appropriate experiences for all users, which we believe will improve interactions for users of all ages on Roblox,” company executives said in a blog post about the new requirement.

Online gaming is a popular way for kids and teens to socialize. On Roblox, users create or play in virtual spaces and chat with others. Some of the platform’s popular games involve exploring virtual towns, planting digital crops and caring for virtual pets.

But players also use avatars and usernames to represent themselves online, making it tough to tell a player’s age.

Some lawsuits against Roblox allege that predators are pretending to be children and convincing minors to send sexually explicit images of themselves on the platform.

Verifying people’s age has been an ongoing issue on various online platforms as child safety concerns grow. But tech companies such as Meta, Google and Apple have clashed over whether app stores or the platforms themselves should check the age of users.

When people sign up for Roblox, like on other platforms, they provide their birth date, but it’s easy to lie about one’s age. Asking people to turn over their government ID or an image of their face, though, comes with privacy concerns and adds a barrier to using certain online features.

Roblox said it’s working with San Francisco identity verification company Persona, which will process the images and videos of people’s faces. It said data from the scans will be deleted immediately afterward. The gaming platform said verifying your age is optional but users won’t be able to access chat features unless they do so.

In the first week of December, the company will start enforcing this requirement in certain countries, including Australia, New Zealand and the Netherlands. Then, in early January, the requirement will extend to the rest of the world where Roblox’s chat features are available.