Roblox Rolls Out Global Facial Age Verification for Chats

Roblox, the popular online gaming platform with millions of young users worldwide, has begun a global rollout of mandatory facial age verification to access chat features, following trials in select countries and ongoing legal pressures over child safety.

The company announced the changes in November 2025, after facing multiple lawsuits and investigations accusing it of failing to protect minors from grooming attempts and explicit content. The verification process, which started testing in Australia, New Zealand, and the Netherlands last month, requires users to open the Roblox mobile app, grant camera permissions, and follow onscreen prompts to capture a facial image or short video. A third-party vendor, Persona, processes the submission to estimate the user's age and assigns them to one of six brackets: under 9 years, 9 to 12 years, 13 to 15 years, 16 to 17 years, 18 to 20 years, and 21 years and older. Roblox states that all images and videos are deleted immediately after processing by both the company and the vendor.

Once verified, users can only communicate in chats with others in their own age group or adjacent ones, such as 9- to 12-year-olds interacting with those under...