Highlights
- Roblox is making Roblox ID age checks mandatory for anyone who wants to use the chat feature.
- Users must verify their age through a government ID or an AI-powered face estimate tool.
- The new verification rules start in select countries this December and go global early next year.
Roblox is doing a major overhaul of its features, and if you are someone who chats, then it is important that you keep up with these changes.
Due to a lot of concerns about how kids might be talking to strangers in the chat option, the company is going to make age checks for Roblox IDs mandatory soon.
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To be able to stay popular with kids, the gaming company is making safety the number one priority. I will just outline what is happening and why.
Roblox introduces mandatory ID age checks to improve user safety
Why Roblox is doing this?
Roblox has over 150 million users and a big portion of those users are children under 13 years old. The platform has been positioning itself as a learning and creative space for kids, but in the past few months, it has been under a lot of legal pressure from different states in the US.
Several attorneys general from states like Kentucky, Louisiana, and Florida have filed suits accusing Roblox of being a place where adults could easily and inappropriately access children.
Besides that, some families said the platform enabled the scenarios of the abusers grooming and abusing their victims.
Hence, the company decided to upgrade parental controls and moderation tools which, according to them, have been in place for a long time.
Image Credits: Robolox
How the new Roblox ID age checks work?
The company has laid out a new mechanism that attempts to figure out the actual age of as many users as possible. You have two different methods to prove who you are.
Government ID
Any person over 13 years old can upload an image of a single government-issued ID for age verification. It does the verification in a secure manner and ends it shortly after.
AI-based face check
Roblox has collaborated with Persona for the purpose that users don’t have to upload an ID if they want. By using your front camera, this service quickly identifies your age group by scanning your face.
To validate that it is you and not a picture, it also asks you to move your head a little. Right after the age range is determined, the scanned image is removed from the database.
After the users are put into certain age groups according to their verified ages, they will be allowed to contact each other.
The younger one can only contact individuals that are in a certain age range. To illustrate, a 12-year-old will only be able to talk with users who are 12 to 15 years old and not with those who are 16 or older.
The limiting of interaction between children and unknown adults is the main idea of this new rule, which is one of the most significant parts of the whole thing.
What happens next?
Currently, users can choose to do the verification, but this will not be the case for long. It will be mandatory in Australia, New Zealand, and the Netherlands starting from December. The worldwide rollout will take place shortly after that.
According to the safety team at Roblox, the main intention behind this move is to give the users a safer environment where they can socialize and connect with age mates.
This update also got brought up while a virtual protest held by a group of parents requesting that kid safety online get better.
Overall, this new age verification for a Roblox ID is probably the most significant change that the platform has undergone for a couple of years.
Some might think that the company is going overboard, but really it’s the other way around, and the main point here is the protection of kids.
With these new features, namely the face estimation tool and ID verification, Roblox is trying to make the platform safer while not compromising the user experience.
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