Australian Regulator Cites Roblox Child Safety Breaches; Company to Restrict Adult Contact, Default Child
Australia's eSafety regulator found Roblox failed to adequately protect minors, allowing adults to contact children without parental consent and exposing children's profiles publicly. In response, Roblox committed to banning adult-initiated contact with unknown minors without parental approval, making child accounts private by default, improving reporting mechanisms, and undergoing independent audits. The company maintains compliance with the Online Safety Act but agreed to the stricter measures. Roblox also faces U. S. scrutiny, including a Senate subcommittee investigation and multi-state lawsuits, with some settlements reached.
Australia's online safety regulator, eSafety, has concluded a safety test of the gaming and social platform Roblox, prompting the company to commit to further changes to its child safety features. The regulator's investigation focused on whether the platform had adequate measures to prevent adults from contacting children under 16. Although Roblox had recently implemented some new safety measures, eSafety's targeted testing in 2026 found that the platform still exposed minors to risk, including allowing children to make contact with adult strangers.
According to eSafety's test report, specific issues included: adults could send friend requests directly to young Australian children without parental or guardian consent; on forums outside the gaming environment, children and adults could view and reply to each other's posts without parental supervision; children's social connection networks were fully visible to all platform users; and children's personal profiles and bios—including non-sensitive information such as account names, friend counts and names, avatars, and interests—were publicly accessible, with no privacy options provided to restrict visibility.
Roblox maintained that its operations complied with its obligations under the Online Safety Act, but to address regulatory concerns, the company agreed to introduce a series of stricter safety measures. These include: a complete ban on adults contacting unknown minor users without parental consent; enhanced privacy protections for child accounts, with all settings defaulting to private; the establishment of a more accessible reporting mechanism with timely notification of complaint outcomes; and the engagement of an independent third-party auditor to comprehensively assess the effectiveness of its safety measures and age assessment systems.
Roblox's global head of public policy, Nicky Jackson Colaço, said in an official statement that the remediation commitments build on constructive dialogue with eSafety and reflect Roblox's dedication to working with global regulators and policymakers to safeguard children online. She added that Roblox recently launched "Roblox Kids" and a curated account service tailored for users under 16. Separately, Roblox faces child safety controversies in the United States, where it is under investigation by a Senate subcommittee and has been sued by multiple states over alleged mismanagement of child safety, with settlements reached in some states.