Roblox Introduces Mandatory Facial Age Checks for Young Players
It should give younger players a safer, more controlled space to interact without the risks that once slipped through.
Roblox is about to look very different for its 70+ million daily users, and it all comes down to a major shift in how the platform approaches safety. After months of pressure, lawsuits, and growing concern over child protection, the company is moving to mandatory facial age verification for anyone who wants to use chat.
This applies to every user worldwide beginning in January, marking a dramatic break from how the platform has operated until now. For years, Roblox relied on a simple honor system. Users typed in a birth year when creating an account, and the platform essentially trusted them. That approach became harder to defend as Roblox expanded into one of the largest digital hangouts for children and teenagers.
With attorneys general in multiple states accusing the company of failing to shield younger players from grooming risks and explicit content, Roblox is now making a much heavier pivot. Facial verification is the center of that shift. Anyone who wants to chat will need to confirm their age through the Roblox app using their phone’s camera.
Emmanuel Umahi
A short video is then analyzed by Persona, a third-party vendor that performs facial age estimation. Roblox says all images and video used in the process are deleted immediately after verification on both sides, leaving no lingering data.
Once a user is verified, they’re placed into one of six age bands ranging from “under 9” to “21+.” These bands control who can talk to whom. A 12-year-old, for instance, can chat with users 15 and under, while anyone 16 or older is automatically filtered out. It’s essentially a zoning system that limits how easily adults can interact with younger players, and it reduces the kind of unstructured contact that created safety concerns in the first place.
The rollout will happen gradually. Voluntary verification is already available. Enforcement begins in early December in countries like Australia, the Netherlands, and New Zealand. By January, the rest of the world will be under the new rules. At the same time, Roblox is opening a new Safety Center to help parents understand what tools exist, how to manage controls, and what these age rules mean for their children.
For a platform that sits somewhere between a game, a social network, and a creative marketplace, this is one of the biggest safety pivots the industry has seen. Roblox is balancing user freedom with legal pressure and public perception, and the shift signals how seriously the company now treats its responsibilities to younger players.
The takeaway
Roblox is moving from trusting what users claim about their age to actively verifying who they are. Facial age checks for chat and stricter age-based communication rules mark a significant change in how online platforms think about safety for minors. The real test will be whether users and parents accept facial verification as a standard part of digital life.
Oluwaseun Bamisile
