Roblox’s new age-verification program, introduced to make social features safer, is struggling with a messy debut. Reports from players, parents, and developers describe incorrect age labels, disrupted friendships, and quick workarounds that undermine the system’s intent. Safety advocates have long pressed the platform to separate kids from unknown adults; the early execution suggests that getting there will be complicated.
How the New Age Gates Are Supposed to Work
To unlock chat and other social features, Roblox now requires users 13 and up to complete an age check through identity vendor Persona. Players can either submit a government ID or use an AI-based age-estimation process that analyzes a face image. After verification, accounts are placed into one of six age tiers, and chat is limited to peers in the same or adjacent categories.
The initiative is part of a broader safety push as Roblox faces lawsuits in Texas, Louisiana, and Kentucky alleging failures to protect minors. With tens of millions of daily users spanning children to adults, the company is trying to enforce age-appropriate boundaries at scale—a notoriously tricky task known in policy circles as “age assurance.”
Early Misfires and Mislabeling in the Rollout
Wired documented more than 100 complaints from parents and players who say the system misread their age or shuffled them into the wrong group. Some adults are being flagged as under 13 and losing access to chat, while some kids are being labeled older than they are, potentially widening their exposure to adult spaces. Several users also report losing contact with friends when verification split long-standing groups across different tiers.
These are the costly errors in any age system: false positives that block legitimate users and false negatives that put minors into adult lanes. In practice, both outcomes degrade trust—either by severing social ties or by weakening the very protections the system is supposed to provide.
Workarounds and a Budding Gray Market Emerges
Roblox says it has seen instances of parents completing the process on behalf of their children, which can inadvertently elevate a kid’s account to an adult tier, sometimes tagged as 21+. That undermines the core age gating and complicates enforcement for the platform.
Separately, Dexerto highlighted verified Roblox accounts being hawked for a few dollars on e-commerce marketplaces. An eBay spokesperson said such listings are being removed for policy violations, but the episode shows how quickly verification status can become a commodity. If account selling scales, it could give determined teens or bad actors a shortcut past safety controls.
Developers Report Sudden Drop in Chat Activity
Some creators are urging a rollback after seeing sharp declines in chat engagement across their experiences. Synchronous chat is a key ingredient for retention, group play, and economy sinks on the platform. If age walls fragment player cohorts or slow down onboarding, developers worry about lost sessions and weaker monetization.
Screenshots circulating in community channels show thinner chat streams in popular hubs. While anecdotal, the pattern is consistent with a system that temporarily over-blocks while teams tune thresholds, appeals, and recovery tools.
Why AI Age Estimation Struggles With Teens
Age estimation from a selfie is probabilistic: models infer a range that can swing widely for adolescents, whose features change rapidly and vary across demographics. Research cited by organizations such as NIST has shown that performance can differ by age, skin tone, and lighting conditions. In plain terms, teens are the hardest group to classify accurately, and they are also the group most reliant on chat.
Identity documents reduce uncertainty but raise their own issues—privacy concerns, uneven access for younger users, and the risk of parents submitting on a child’s behalf. Regulators including the UK Information Commissioner’s Office have urged platforms to adopt layered “proportionate” age checks, combine signals, and provide meaningful appeal paths when automation gets it wrong.
What Roblox Is Saying and Key Things to Watch
Roblox says it has already verified millions of accounts and acknowledges the rollout will require iteration. The company has indicated it is working on safeguards to prevent parents from inadvertently aging up a child’s account and is evaluating additional fixes for misclassifications. Chief safety officer Matt Kaufman has emphasized that building a system of this scale won’t be flawless on day one.
Key milestones to watch include a robust appeals process, tighter fraud controls around verified accounts, clearer parent workflows, and telemetry that shows whether cross-age interactions are actually declining. If Roblox can reduce error rates while preserving social gameplay, it will offer a playbook other youth-heavy platforms can follow. If not, age verification risks becoming another barrier that users route around—while the safety problems remain.
