Roblox tightens youth safeguards after Nevada deal

Roblox has agreed to a $12 million settlement with Nevada and is rolling out broader child safety and age-checking measures across its platform, as the gaming company faces mounting scrutiny over how it protects young users from harmful contact and unsuitable content. The deal, announced this week, combines payments for youth programmes and safety initiatives with product changes that Roblox says will apply nationwide by June.

The settlement stems from claims by Nevada that Roblox had not done enough to shield children from exploitation on a service used heavily by minors. Under the agreement, $10 million will go towards youth development programmes in Nevada over three years, while another $2.5 million will be directed towards an online safety awareness campaign and law-enforcement liaison support, according to Reuters. Associated Press reported the overall package as a $12 million settlement tied to a push for stronger protections rather than a drawn-out court fight.

At the centre of the changes is a sharper system for separating children, teenagers and adults on the platform. Roblox said on 13 April that it would introduce two account types for users under 16: “Roblox Kids” for ages five to eight and “Roblox Select” for ages nine to 15. These accounts are due to begin rolling out in early June and are designed to tie together age checks, content ratings, moderation and parental controls in a single framework. Users aged 16 and above are not expected to see the same level of restrictions.

For younger users, the practical effect is a narrower digital playground. Roblox Kids accounts will limit players to content rated minimal or mild, while chat is disabled by default. Roblox Select accounts will allow a broader range of experiences, but with tighter controls over communication, safety defaults and parental oversight. The company says parents will gain expanded powers to manage screen time, review communications settings and block access to specific experiences for users under 16.

Age verification has become the key enforcement tool. Roblox has been moving towards facial age estimation and government-ID checks to decide which social features a user can access. In January, the company said facial age checks would be required for chat access, presenting the move as part of a wider safety system. The Nevada settlement builds on that shift by making stronger verification a formal part of Roblox’s response to regulators. Reuters reported that the company will use government IDs and artificial intelligence technologies for age verification, alongside tighter parental controls and restrictions on chat for users under 16.

One of the most closely watched features is Roblox’s “trusted friends” system, which is meant to limit interactions between younger users and unknown adults. Roblox’s own help guidance says teenagers aged 13 to 17 cannot create a trusted-friend link with an adult unless that connection is verified through a real-life method such as live QR-code scanning or imported phone contacts. For users under 13, parental approval is required for each trusted friend. AP reported that Nevada’s settlement also leans on this approach by narrowing chat access to trusted contacts and verified real-world connections.

The company is making these changes under pressure from more than one direction. Reuters said Roblox is facing over 140 federal lawsuits as well as separate state-level legal action from individuals who allege the platform enabled child exploitation through weak safeguards. Roblox has denied wrongdoing in those cases, but the volume of complaints has intensified questions about whether rapid growth and a sprawling user-generated world outpaced its protections.

There is also a wider industry debate about whether age assurance can solve the problem cleanly. Roblox has promoted facial age estimation as a way to match users with developmentally appropriate features, yet critics warn that age-verification systems can raise privacy concerns, produce errors and create incentives for circumvention. The Guardian reported that some parents had helped children bypass Roblox’s checks by standing in for them during verification, prompting the company to emphasise revalidation when behaviour appears inconsistent with an account’s claimed age. That underlines a central tension facing platforms: stronger identity checks may block some risks, but they do not eliminate workarounds or broader concerns about data collection.