Roblox rolls out facial age checks to sort users by age

A fake mustache did not fool Roblox’s new age-estimation system. When an 11-year-old tried the video selfie check at the company’s San Mateo headquarters, the platform flagged the child as being between ages 9 and 12, a test that underscored how Roblox is betting on biometric inference to police who gets into its chat and game features.

Roblox is now using facial age estimation, government ID checks and verified parental consent to place users into age-based accounts, moving beyond self-reported birthdays that critics say have been easy to game. Eliza Jacobs, Roblox’s vice president of safety product policy, said the company was “optimistic” that the technology would “continue to get better,” adding: “Ticking a box to say you’re 13 or older, it’s not enough anymore.”

The new system creates two tiers for younger users. Roblox Kids covers ages 5 to 8, with messaging off by default and access limited to experiences labeled Minimal or Mild. Roblox Select covers ages 9 to 15, with more chat functions and access to games rated up to Moderate. Users 16 and older generally keep the full Roblox experience, and the company says age-checked users under 16 will still be able to reach the vast majority of their favorite games at launch.

The rollout marks a major shift for one of the largest social gaming platforms for children, which launched in 2006 and built its business around user-made experiences and real-time messaging. Roblox said the age-checking program for chat began in select markets in early December 2025, including Australia, New Zealand and the Netherlands, before expanding globally in early January 2026 wherever chat is available. By April 13, more than half of global daily active users and 65 percent of U.S. daily active users had completed an age check.

The push comes under intensifying scrutiny from state officials and families who argue that fake birthdays and weak verification have let adults pose as children and let children slip past under-13 controls. Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill sued Roblox in August 2025, and Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier issued criminal subpoenas in October 2025 as part of a child-safety investigation. At the same time, privacy and free-expression advocates, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, have warned that mandatory age verification can create data-security and civil-liberties risks, even as the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection has called age-verification tools among the most child-protective technologies to emerge in decades.