eSafety finds Roblox child safety measures insufficient under Online Safety Act

Australia’s online safety regulator, eSafety, has determined that Roblox has not fully resolved child safety issues under the Online Safety Act. The regulator’s testing identified specific gaps in the platform’s compliance, concluding that the current measures continued to put children at risk by allowing contact between young users and adult strangers.

The investigation focused on concerns that Roblox had allegedly failed to implement sufficient measures to prevent contact between adults and children under 16. eSafety’s testing revealed that adults could send connection requests to young Australian children without parental or carer consent. Additionally, children and adults were able to view and respond to one another’s posts on forums outside of game environments, again without parental oversight.

Further findings indicated that children’s connections, profiles, and biographies were visible to anyone on the Roblox platform. This visibility included account names, the number and names of connections, avatar images, and non-sensitive biographical information such as user interests. eSafety noted that there was no option for users to restrict the visibility of this information.

While Roblox believes it meets its Online Safety Act obligations, the company has announced plans to implement additional safety measures. These changes include preventing adults from contacting unknown children without parental consent and strengthening account settings so that children’s accounts are private by default.

The platform is also introducing accessible reporting mechanisms that will notify users of complaint outcomes. To further assess the effectiveness of its safety measures, including its age-estimation tools, Roblox is engaging an independent third-party auditor. Roblox did not immediately reply to a request for comment regarding the findings.

In the United States, Roblox is currently under investigation by a Senate subcommittee and has faced lawsuits from multiple states over alleged child safety issues, though it has settled some of these claims. Earlier this year, the platform announced two new types of accounts for younger users that restrict certain games and chat features.