Roblox has disclosed that parents are actively assisting their children in bypassing the platform's facial age verification systems, designed to segregate users into age-appropriate cohorts for safer interactions. This revelation has compelled the gaming company to institute daily rechecks on accounts where user behaviour suggests the individual might be younger than their estimated age.
Enhanced Safety Measures and Parental Circumvention
In December of last year, Roblox introduced new features to enhance child safety by requiring users who wish to access chat functions to undergo facial age assurance. This process groups individuals into similar age brackets until they reach 21 years old, aiming to prevent minors from engaging in unsupervised conversations with adults.
Since the implementation of these measures, Roblox has closely monitored account activity to detect any discrepancies between a user's apparent age and their behaviour. During this surveillance, the company identified instances where parents were involved in helping their children falsify their ages.
Validation Tests Uncover Deception
Matt Kaufman, Roblox's chief of safety, explained that validation tests exposed these deceptive practices. "When we went and did the validation tests on that, you could see the kid in the background who handed the phone to their parent," he stated. This observation underscores the necessity of robust systems to counteract such manipulation.
Kaufman emphasised that the facial age estimation technology is not flawless, with an error margin of approximately 1.4 years for users under 18. He highlighted ongoing efforts to prevent users from exploiting the system, such as by presenting videos of others or altering their appearance with items like magic markers to appear older.
Daily Rechecks and Global Adoption
To maintain integrity, Roblox has implemented extensive fraud checks, ensuring that age verification is not a one-time event. "Age checks are not a one-time process ... if we notice their user behaviour doesn't quite match up with what the age check process generated, we'll simply ask the user to go through the process again," Kaufman noted. These rechecks occur daily for users flagged by the system.
As of April, 50% of Roblox's global daily user base of 144 million has undergone age assurance checks. In regions like Australia, New Zealand, and the Netherlands, where the system was launched in December, the adoption rate is higher at 60%.
Regulatory Context and Future Plans
Roblox is currently exempt from Australia's under-16 social media ban, thanks to its enhanced safety features. However, eSafety commissioner Julie Inman Grant reported last month that children within two years of 16 were easily bypassing facial age estimation on various platforms. By March, over two-thirds of Australian teens under 16 remained on banned platforms, with half under investigation for non-compliance.
The company's safety initiatives follow a Guardian Australia investigation that documented virtual sexual harassment and violence experienced by a user posing as an eight-year-old on Roblox. In response, Roblox announced additional checks for games on its platform, including moderation of both content and player interactions to ensure age-appropriateness.
New account types for users under nine and those aged nine to 15 will offer age-suitable games, and Roblox plans to adopt the Australian classification system for games later this year, further strengthening its commitment to user safety.
