Roblox Pushes Ahead With New Age Checks as Parents Flag Mistakes

BBC, Reuters, Roblox, the Guardian, and Bloomberg contributed to this report.

Roblox is tightening its safety system for kids – but not everyone’s convinced it’s working as intended.

The company is rolling out a major update built around age-based accounts, designed to control what users see, who they talk to, and how they interact on the platform. The idea is simple: figure out a player’s age, then tailor the experience around it.

In practice, it’s getting messy.

Some parents say the system is getting it wrong – labeling children as older users and placing them in less restricted versions of the game. That can mean fewer parental controls and broader access to content and communication tools.

Roblox says the tech is still a step up from the old method.

According to chief safety officer Matt Kaufman, the platform’s age-estimation system – powered partly by facial analysis – is now used by more than half of its 144 million daily users. For under-18s, he says it’s typically accurate within about 1.4 years.

And yes, mistakes happen.

Kaufman acknowledged that errors are part of the process, but argued that self-reported ages are even less reliable. Ask a kid how old they are online, he pointed out, and you’ll often get the answer they think will unlock more features.

The new system builds on Roblox’s existing safety setup, where users are grouped by age before they can access chat features. Now, that approach goes further.

Two new account types are at the center of the update:

• Roblox Kids (ages 5–8): stripped-down version, no chat, tightly curated games
• Roblox Select (ages 9–15): more content, limited communication, still filtered

Users who skip the age check are automatically pushed into the most restricted version – no chat, kid-safe content only.

Behind the scenes, Roblox is also tightening control over what games younger users can access. With more than two million developers on the platform, not everything makes the cut. Games are filtered based on content, creator history, and how players interact with them.

Still, critics say the risks aren’t going away.

The changes land just days after a parent said her teenage daughter had been groomed into sending explicit images to an adult through the platform. Cases like that continue to raise questions about how safe Roblox really is for younger users.

Experts are cautiously optimistic – but not fully reassured.

Sonia Livingstone, a professor at the London School of Economics, called the updates “encouraging” but warned there’s growing evidence of ongoing safety issues, including exposure to adult content and ways for strangers to contact children.

Parents, meanwhile, are dealing with the practical side of things.

When the system gets an age wrong, fixing it can be a hassle. Roblox says users can reset their age checks, submit appeals, or verify with ID – but that doesn’t always make the process quick or stress-free.

There’s another wrinkle: some parents are part of the problem.

The company says it has caught cases where adults help kids bypass age checks, sometimes even appearing in the background during verification. That’s one reason Roblox now monitors behavior and can trigger rechecks if something doesn’t add up.

All of this is unfolding under growing pressure on tech companies worldwide to better protect children online. New laws and tighter rules are pushing platforms to act – and fast.

Roblox says it’s doing more than most.

Given its scale, the company argues it has little choice. With millions of young users logging in every day, the scrutiny isn’t going anywhere. And neither, it seems, is the balancing act between safety, accuracy, and keeping the platform easy to use.