Amid growing concerns about child safety, Roblox is rolling out age verification checks to prevent children from speaking with adults online.

Roblox is one of the biggest gaming platforms in the world but over the past year, concerns about the platform have continued to grow.

The game has been subject to various petitions, lawsuits, and investigations, accusing the platform of exploiting children and allowing the distribution of inappropriate and illegal content. Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, recently announced he was suing Roblox for ‘putting pixel paedophiles and profits over the safety of Texas children’.

Roblox has denied all these claims, but it has announced the implementation of new age verification checks to provide ‘even more age appropriate experiences’ for its players.

As announced on Tuesday, Roblox is rolling out age-based chat restrictions using a system called Persona, which requires a video selfie for age assessment using Facial Age Estimation technology. According to the blog post, any images or video are deleted immediately after processing.

After the age verification is complete, players will be designated an age group limiting who they can chat with to those within their assigned bracket or of similar age categories. These brackets are under nine (who will need additional parental consent to talk with others), 9-12, 13-15, 16-17, 18-20, and over 21.

Anyone above the age of 13 can speak with others outside their age group by adding them as Trusted Connections, which requires both parties to add each other to their respective contacts list. A direct chat functionality between parents and children younger than 13, or between siblings in different age groups, is set to roll out in the future.

This age verification is available everywhere now on a voluntary basis, but it will soon become mandatory if you want to use any chat functionality. It will be compulsory in Australia, New Zealand, and the Netherlands starting in December, before it is extended to the rest of the world in early January.

You can still play Roblox without verifying your age, but you will not be allowed to communicate with others starting from next year in the UK.

Age estimation tools have faced criticism over their reliability and easy workarounds, but Roblox’s chief safety officer, Matt Kaufman, states it is ‘typically pretty accurate within one or two years’ for users between five and 25 years old. If you disagree with the estimate, you can provide an ID or use parental consent to correct any inaccuracies.

Starting in early 2026, Roblox will require age checks to access social media links on user profiles, communities, and game experiences too.

Roblox already has some protections in place to protect minors. All chat across the entire platform is supposedly monitored, while communication between users under the age of 13 has ‘strict filtering’ to block inappropriate content and personal information.

Even with age checks though, it’s unclear if these measures will satisfy those who have levelled lawsuits at the Roblox Corporation. Earlier this year, the platform broke the record for the most concurrent users on a platform, with 47.3 million players online at the same time.

Selfie verification (Roblox Corporation)

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