Roblox agrees to strengthen child safety in Australia
The agreement sets enforceable steps on child privacy, adult contact, reporting tools and independent audits for a platform used by many children.
neljapäev, 20. august 2026 10:59
Roblox has given Australia’s eSafety commissioner a court-enforceable undertaking in August to strengthen child protections after the regulator found adults could view child accounts and send connection requests.
The undertaking requires the online gaming platform to do more “to protect children from grooming, sexual exploitation and abuse”, The Conversation reported. The agreement followed almost two years of exchanges between eSafety and Roblox over compliance with child-safety industry standards.
Roblox committed to preventing adults from contacting unknown children without parental consent, making children’s account settings private by default, improving reporting tools so users are told complaint outcomes, and hiring an independent auditor to assess safety measures, including age-assurance checks.
Roblox is exempt from Australia’s social media age restrictions, like other gaming platforms, but it must comply with the Online Safety Act. The company committed in late 2025 to introduce child-safety changes, including age-assurance checks for all users seeking access to chat features, but eSafety put it on notice in February 2026 over child-grooming concerns.
Roblox later created new “kids accounts” and enhanced parental controls. Design changes announced earlier included account types for children aged 5–8 and 9–15, chat set to “off” by default in Australia, parental controls to manage chat and controls to block specific games for children under 13.
eSafety’s latest action marks the second notice of concern in six months and gives Roblox three months to comply. The regulator’s broader work on online age checks has faced delays, with a July report finding more than 50% of children said social media platforms had not asked them to confirm their age and 18% said platforms wrongly estimated they were 16 or older.
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