Most parents have always been cautious about spaces in online gaming, but Roblox has come under fire more recently after it allegedly failed to implement proper safety protocols for kids. The accusations against Roblox were so severe that Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said, “Roblox is overrun with harmful content and child predators because it prioritizes user growth, revenue, and profits over child safety.”
That’s a strong statement, and in response, Roblox’s Chief Safety Officer, Matt Kaufman, has announced a new plan to implement age estimation for all users. Users will need to verify their age through one or more methods, including potentially uploading a selfie so that an AI can estimate their age based on facial features.
“Using a combination of facial age estimation technology, ID age verification, and verified parental consent, this process will provide a more accurate measure of a user’s age than simply relying on what someone types in when they create an account,” Kaufman writes.
Roblox is far from the first game to require features like this, though it is perhaps the most prominent due to its relatively younger user base. Genshin Impact has required players to verify their age since May 20 of this year. All players have until July 2026 to complete the request or their accounts will be permanently deleted.
Companies should take action to keep children safe online, and this is a step in the right direction. That said, it does raise potentially significant privacy concerns.
How safe is “safe?”
Numerous countries have age verification laws for everything from online gambling to accessing pornographic materials, and these laws usually require users to upload their ID, a picture, or a video of themselves to prove they’re the age they claim. The UK’s Online Safety Act is one example of these guidelines.
However, the systems aren’t perfect. They can (and have) been tricked through various methods. One recent case of this is users who defeated Reddit and Discord’s UK age verification through Death Stranding’s photo mode. And of course, kids can simply play on their parents’ accounts to bypass the restrictions.
One of the biggest questions this guideline raises is how secure Roblox intends to make its age verification servers. With users uploading sensitive data like their license or other forms of ID, the risk of data breaches takes a big leap forward.
The concern isn’t without a basis. Data breaches and large-scale hacks are relatively common, even with more secure systems. Just this week, Gmail supposedly suffered a major data breach, although Google denies the attack. In July of this year, Microsoft SharePoint was breached and revealed data from businesses, universities, and other agencies across the globe. And that’s just two examples.
That said, Roblox does address these concerns. In its FAQ page for age verification, the service writes, “We want you to know that we take our community’s safety and privacy seriously, and Roblox never stores raw ID document data. When a government-issued ID is scanned for verification, an anonymized value is generated, allowing Roblox to safely verify identity without risking exposure of the user’s real identity.”
In addition, Roblox doesn’t handle verification solely on its own. The company partners with a third-party provider called Persona for age verification. Your personal information remains with Persona for 30 days, after which “uploaded data is removed from Persona.”
Privacy is a small trade to keep kids safe
While I can understand why some users are concerned about privacy, the argument also feels like a moot point. Today’s Internet is not the same as it was in the late 90s and early 2000s. Everyone attaches their real name to things, and the number of interconnected systems is mind-boggling. Ask yourself: how many things do you log into using your Gmail account?
If anonymity were as big a concern now as it was 25 years ago, I could see more value in the argument — but as it is, the average person’s online safety practices are abysmal. Between repeated passwords, haphazard use of public Wi-Fi, and any number of other factors, it’s honestly astounding that large-scale hacks don’t occur more frequently than they already do.
Roblox deserves some kudos for the efforts it has taken to keep its users safe. Since January, the platform has rolled out over 100 different safety initiatives, including an AI-powered detection tool called Roblox Sentinel that’s trained to detect “early signs of child endangerment.” According to Naren Koneru, Roblox’s Vice President of Engineering and Safety, Roblox Sentinel helped identify nearly 1,200 reports of child exploitation in the first half of 2025 alone.
Part of the problem lies in Roblox’s nature as a creation and transaction platform. Those unfamiliar with it might think Roblox is a game in itself, but it’s a game platform. Users can create their own games and host them on Roblox servers, and as of 2024, there were more than 40 million different games. The vast majority of these are untouched, with only a few rising to popularity.
There are loads of kid-friendly games on there. Conversely, there are just as many (if not more) user-created games that are not child-appropriate. There is no system on the planet that can identify what games a kid should or should not play with perfect accuracy, and that’s why it’s important for parents to be particularly cautious when letting younger children play online.
Recent safety updates have made that easier. According to Kaufman, games without a rating can’t be played, social hangouts are restricted to age-verified users of an appropriate age, and more. In addition, he writes “Unlike many other online platforms, Roblox proactively monitors all text chat on the platform, prevents user-to-user image sharing, and has default settings designed to prevent users younger than 13 from using private chat or voice chat.”
It’s not a perfect approach, but Roblox‘s goal for bettering child safety is something that other platforms popular among younger gamers, like Fortnite and Minecraft, should consider taking notes from.
