Roblox has begun its global rollout of facial age verification onto the popular gaming platform starting today, in an attempt to improve child safety following a deluge of criticism. This comes after a partial rollout of the technology back in December.
In a blog post on the official Roblox website, chief safety officer Matt Kaufman and VP of user discovery Rajiv Bhatia explained how these new age checks will work. Over the next week, users will find this new security measure added to Roblox as a barrier between them and the gaming platform’s chat feature.
The blog post states: “As the first large online gaming platform to require facial age checks for users of all ages to access chat, this implementation is our next step toward what we believe will be the gold standard for communication safety. It enables age-based chat, which promotes a positive, age-appropriate experience for all users globally, and limits communication between adults and children younger than 16.”
The post also features statistics from its earlier partial rollout. It claims that following the facial age verification implementation in Australia, New Zealand, and the Netherlands more than 50 percent of daily active users had completed the process.
For Roblox users younger than nine-years-old, parental permission will be required to use the chat functionality. Those aged 13 or older will be able to chat with those from a wider age group ranging from nine to seventeen thanks to what Roblox is calling their “Trusted Connections Feature”. This age group will not be able to speak to those above or below that range, and similar restrictions are present for different detected age groups. Those over the age of 13 can instead verify their age using ID.
Roblox claims that user privacy is paramount, and that images taken to verify the age of users are deleted immediately after the security check is completed. On a Roblox help page dedicated to this Trusted Connections feature, it states that occasionally users may have to redo this age verification process. In the event that the age verification software places a user into an age bracket that’s incorrect, an appeal process is available where real-world ID or parental controls can manually circumvent the user’s assigned age.
These age verification checks come following a period of intense scrutiny aimed at Roblox in regard to what many believe to be subpar efforts in child safety. The platform was sued by the state of Louisiana last year over child safety, with Roblox’s CEO previously stating that parents not comfortable with their children playing the game shouldn’t let them Roblox. Months later, he would return to the forefront of this debate in a trainwreck interview, in which he stated the game’s predator problem was an “opportunity” for the platform.
While undoubtedly a step in the right direction, this type of facial recognition technology has been circumvented by younger users in recent months. When the UK rolled out its online safety bill requiring larger websites to verify the ages of users, many used Norman Reedus in Death Stranding 2 to trick the facial recognition software. Whether or not this is a great stride towards a safer Roblox for kids remains to be seen.
