Report from Engadget
In Brief – Roblox has agreed to the demands of Australia’s eSafety Commissioner to undertake a series of court-enforceable changes to strengthen protections for young users against grooming and sexual abuse. The gaming platform, which has faced criticism in many jurisdictions that is plays host to child predators, has introduced several safety measures, including user age verification, which started in Australia in late 2025, as well as creating three age-based account tiers, including Kids accounts with restricted content, chat disabled by default and parental controls. The age-gated system was expanded globally in June. Roblox says that it believes it is meeting its obligations under Australia’s Online Safety Act but agreed to make additional changes within three months, including preventing adults from contacting children they do not know without parental consent, making children’s accounts private by default, improving reporting mechanisms, and commissioning an independent safety audit.
Context – Online age limits and age verification is expanding globally along a rubric of porn, social media, and game sites with social features. Australia’s 16-year-old threshold for social media is the highest profile. Although gaming sites are not covered by the blanket 16-year-old age limit for social media, Australia’s Online Safety Act limits access by minors to a range of harmful but legal online content. For example, search engines such as Google and Bing now verify ages of Australian users to wall off porn sites for users under 18. eSafety regulates game platforms under the same law and directed Roblox, Minecraft, Fortnite, and Steam to provide it with detailed reports on child safety measures and enforcement activities to help the commission assess whether they are upholding their own child protection policies and their legal obligations. The UK online safety regulator has also pushed gaming sites to institute age verification to better enforce age-based platform rules, and Roblox has been sued by several US state attorneys general over similar allegations to those leveled by the Australian regulator.