Amid lawsuits alleging child safety concerns, online gaming service Roblox announced on Wednesday that it’s expanding its age estimation technology to all users and partnering with the International Age Rating Coalition (IARC) to provide age and content ratings for the games and apps on its platform.
The company said that by year’s end, the age estimation system will be rolled out to all Roblox users who access the company’s communication tools, like voice and text-based chat. This involves scanning users’ selfies and analyzing facial features to estimate age.
This age estimation tech is combined with other systems, including ID age verification and verified parental consent, to provide a more accurate measure of a user’s age, Roblox says — especially when compared with simply having kids type in a birth year when they create an account. The company notes that it’s also planning to launch systems that will further limit communications between adults and minors on its platform.
Meanwhile, the company’s partnership with IARC will see Roblox replacing its own content and maturity labels with those used by rating agencies worldwide. That means users in the U.S. will see ratings from the ESRB, while other countries will see those used by their own ratings authorities. Players in the Republic of Korea will see ratings from GRAC; players in Germany will see ratings from the USK; and players elsewhere in Europe and the United Kingdom will see ratings from the PEGI, for instance.
This system is meant to help parents better understand what sort of games their kids are playing, based on factors that could raise concerns, like whether game content features blood or gore, violence, substances, gambling, adult language, and more.
These updates follow earlier moves the company announced in July, designed to better protect younger users.
Roblox introduced a series of safety features, including the age-verification system that analyzes users’ ages via video selfies. This information is used to prevent users younger than 13 from accessing certain features within Roblox, like the ability to voice and text chat without filters. Roblox also prevents users ages 13 to 17 from adding users to their “trusted connections” unless they know them in real life — something Roblox verified through contact imports or QR code scans.
The move also follows the rollout of increasingly strict laws and regulations around the world that require social platforms to verify users’ ages, like the U.K.’s Online Safety Act and Mississippi’s age assurance law, which has already seen social network Bluesky stop serving users in the state. Similar laws are in various stages in other states, including Arizona, Wyoming, South Dakota, and Virginia.
Roblox has invested in safety features over the years, as well.
Among its tools is Roblox Sentinel, an open source AI system designed to detect early signals of child endangerment. The company also offers parental controls, tools to restrict communications, and technology that detects when there are servers where a large number of users are breaking its rules, so it can take them down.
Despite its efforts, child predators still manage to access the platform and target children, according to complaints filed by Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill and in other lawsuits across California, Texas, and Pennsylvania.
In addition, The Guardian recently reported on a research study that discovered that kids on Roblox’s service can still easily come across inappropriate content and interact with bad actors.
More recently, a popular Roblox farming simulator game, Grow a Garden, made headlines because its players began buying and selling its virtual items on online marketplaces for real money, in violation of the platform’s rules. Parents and others raised concerns that the game was luring in children, then pushing them to spend cash to keep up with other players.
The changes to the ratings system may not put an end to all these bad experiences, but it could at least provide parents with more insight about the games their kids are playing.
“Roblox is committed to creating a safe platform for our users and empowering parents to make the best decision for their children,” said Matt Kaufman, Roblox’s chief safety officer, in a prepared statement. “We’re excited to partner with IARC and hope it will provide parents globally with more clarity and confidence regarding age-appropriate content.”
