Roblox, the popular online gaming platform that hosts millions of user-created games, said Tuesday it is strengthening protections for minors.
Roblox said it will soon require players to use AI-powered facial age-estimation technology to help verify their age. The system, combined with ID-based age verification and confirmed parental consent, is intended to “provide a more accurate measure of a user’s age than simply relying on what someone types in when they create an account,” the company said in a statement.
Roblox CEO David Baszucki described the guardrails in an interview with CBS Mornings’ Tony Dokoupil as “what we believe will become the gold standard for safety and civility on the internet.”
Doukopil questioned Baszucki about potential parental concerns about the AI verification, given that it involves minors sending pictures of themselves into the app to verify the user’s age. Some parents “are already skeptical about their children’s safety on Roblox,” Doukopil said.
Roblox is “not storing these images,” Baszucki said. The photos “are deleted soon after [Roblox] process[es] them.”
The image is used to determine the age of the Roblox user, and “then to assign them to the right people that might connect with,” he added.
The company will start enforcing the age-check requirement in select global markets, including Australia, New Zealand and the Netherlands, before expanding the system to other countries in early January. Roblox is also launching a dedicated online safety center to help families understand and set up the platform’s parental controls.
The company’s enhanced protections arrive as dozens of families, along with attorneys general in Kentucky and Louisiana, are suing Roblox, Discord and other technology companies for allegedly failing to deter sexual predators from approaching children on their platforms. Florida is also investigating Roblox, with Attorney General James Uthmeier accusing the platform of failing to protect minors.
Roblox in September outlined plans to expand age checks for all users who want to access communication features on the gaming platform. The guardrails are meant to limit communication between adults and minors unless they already know each other in the real world.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/roblox-announces-measures-to-strengthen-protections-for-minors/
