Roblox faces court-enforceable safety mandate after eSafety findings
Australia’s eSafety Commission has secured a binding commitment from Roblox to overhaul its child safety protocols, following tests that revealed persistent gaps in age verification and contact restrictions.
Roblox has agreed to a court-enforceable undertaking to implement stricter child safety measures after Australia’s eSafety Commission identified significant lapses in the platform’s existing protections. The regulator’s recent testing confirmed that adult users could still send connection requests to Australian children without parental consent, despite Roblox having rolled out new safety measures over the preceding months.
The eSafety Commission’s investigation revealed that the platform’s current safeguards were insufficient to prevent unwanted interactions. Tests showed that adults and children could view and respond to one another’s posts on community forums, and that any user could access an underage user’s connections, profiles, biographies, and avatar images without visibility restrictions. These findings contradicted Roblox’s assertion that it was meeting its obligations under the Online Safety Act.
In response to the findings, Roblox has committed to a series of specific changes. The platform must make children’s accounts private by default and implement a system that prevents adults from contacting children they do not know without parental consent. Additionally, Roblox is required to provide users with accessible reporting mechanisms and submit to an assessment by a third-party auditor to verify the effectiveness of its new safety measures.
The platform has been given a three-month deadline to implement these requirements. If Roblox fails to comply within this period, the eSafety Commission may seek a court order to compel the company to meet its obligations. This development follows a period of intense regulatory scrutiny, during which the Commission engaged extensively with the gaming platform for two years.
Roblox introduced mandatory age verification in Australia in late 2025, a move likely influenced by eSafety’s ongoing work. However, the initial rollout faced challenges, including reports of children spoofing the age check system. By mid-May this year, the platform had segregated users into three age tiers: Kids, Select, and regular Roblox, a system that was implemented globally in June.
The company continues to face legal pressure regarding child safety, including lawsuits from several US states. In May, Roblox agreed to a $12 million settlement with Nevada to introduce a verification system requiring government-issued IDs and facial age estimation. The company has also vowed to prevent users under 16 from messaging adults unless they are designated as a "trusted friend" via a QR code.
