Roblox adds age-based accounts, tightens safety rules for younger users

Roblox is splitting its youngest users into two new age-based accounts, a move meant to tighten safety rules while exposing a harder problem: when age checks get it wrong, families can lose protections or access altogether. The company said it will introduce Roblox Kids for ages 5 to 8 and Roblox Select for ages 9 to 15, with users 16 and older seeing no change. The rollout is set to begin in early June, with Australia starting in May.

The new system folds age checks, account defaults, content ratings, moderation and parental controls into one framework for younger users. Roblox said children and teens who have completed an age check under 16 will still be able to reach the vast majority of their favorite games at launch. Unverified users, by contrast, will be limited to Minimal or Mild-rated games and will have all communication disabled until the age check is finished.

Roblox said the accounts will change automatically as children get older, moving from Kids to Select at age 9 and then to a standard account at 16. Chat will be turned off by default for Kids accounts and turned on gradually for Select accounts based on age, with visual cues inside the app to show which account type a user has. Matt Kaufman, Roblox’s chief safety officer, said the content rules will be enforced through a three-step review process that also requires creator verification, including ID checks, two-factor authentication and an active Roblox Plus subscription.

The company is betting that its own age-estimation technology can carry much of the load. Roblox said the system is already used by more than half of its daily users, and that for users under 18 it typically estimates age within about 1.4 years, plus or minus. It also said 45% of its 144 million daily active users globally have already completed an age check through facial age estimation or ID verification.

But the technology has already drawn complaints from parents who told the BBC that some children were incorrectly identified as adults during age checks. In January, reports said some parents were verifying their children as adults, while verified accounts were being sold on eBay. Roblox said it was aware of parents age-checking on behalf of children and was working on solutions, a reminder that every safeguard also creates a new failure point when it misfires.

That tension sits at the center of Roblox’s safety overhaul. The platform, which The Conversation said has more than 44 million user-created games, has faced lawsuits in Texas, Louisiana and Kentucky, along with concerns from the United Kingdom and Australia over grooming risks. Roblox says the new system is meant to better match access and communication rules to a user’s real age. The harder test is whether those safeguards can protect children at scale without unfairly locking out the families they are supposed to serve.