The new safety measure comes as Roblox faces criticism and at least 35 lawsuits alleging users meet and abuse children on the gaming platform or that the platform helps facilitate child sexual exploitation and grooming.

Roblox must also account for bad actors who try to use fake photos or pictures of another person to evade accurate age estimation. Kaufman said that the combination of video and still imaging helps prevent that. Additionally, the company will deploy fraud checks.

Age checks will involve either facial age estimation enabled by artificial intelligence (AI) or ID verification

Roblox is undergoing a public legal battle after one dad accused the game of exploiting his then 13-year-old son. According to

A Snohomish County family is suing Roblox and Discord, saying the platforms allowed a child predator to target their teen daughter.

Gaming site Roblox is to roll out mandatory age verification for users who want to speak to others over chat. From January, all users will be put into age groups to determine who they can communicate with on the platform, to stop potentially inappropriate conversations between children and adults.

Australia’s eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant warned last month that Roblox had become a popular target for pedophiles seeking to groom children. Predators often use “Robux”, the in-game currency, as a “trade”, or a way to bribe minors into sending explicit images.

Roblox, which recently became the world’s largest gaming platform by concurrent users, is nearing a boiling point with regard to child safety issues -- with over 250,000 people calling for CEO David Baszucki to resign. The petition, posted three weeks ...