After years of complaints, Roblox will implement facial verification and prohibit chats between adults and minors.

After years of complaints, Roblox has announced a historic change in its security system. Starting in January, the video game platform will require age verification through facial recognition and will block any chat between adults and minors.

The measure comes after multiple complaints from families and organizations that warned about the risks of grooming, harassment, and exposure to inappropriate content.

Mandatory facial verification to use chats

Until now, Roblox relied solely on the date of birth entered when creating the account, a system that is easy to manipulate. With the new scheme, any user who wants to access chats, private messages, or social features will have to complete biometric verification.

The process guides the user to record certain facial movements and determines an age range. The company states that the images are processed by an external provider and are deleted immediately, without storing persistent biometric data.

Roblox will be the first major gaming platform to impose this requirement. Verification will begin to be applied mandatorily in December in some countries and will be rolled out globally starting in January.

Strict age segmentation to prevent adult-minor contact

In addition to facial recognition, Roblox will redesign its entire communication structure. Players will be divided into six age groups: under 9 years old; 9–12; 13–15; 16–17; 18–20; and 21 or older.

Users will only be able to chat with people in similar age ranges, except in the case of trusted connections, a feature designed for real-life contacts outside the platform.

For users under 13 years old, additional restrictions will remain in effect: certain chats and messages will remain disabled unless a responsible adult explicitly enables them.

An attempt to stop years of complaints

The new measures are a response to a long history of complaints and campaigns by NGOs and parent groups. Organizations such as ParentsTogether Action and UltraViolet organized a virtual protest inside Roblox and gathered more than 12,000 signatures demanding stricter controls.