A month after introducing mandatory facial verification to access chats on its site, Roblox says 45% of its daily active users were age-verified as of January 31.
Roblox’s introduction of age testing follows a wave of lawsuits over child safety, including those from the attorneys general of Texas, Kentucky, and Louisiana. The lawsuits were filed in response to reports that Roblox was exposing young users to dangerous risks, such as grooming and explicit content.
To complete the age verification process, users must open the Roblox app, allow access to their camera, and follow a series of on-screen instructions for facial verification. Once age verification is processed, Roblox says it removes any photos or videos of users. Verification is processed by a third-party vendor, Persona, who also removes photos and videos after completing the process, Roblox said.
Once users have completed age verification, they can access age-based chat, meaning they can only communicate with others in the same age group. There are six age groups: under 9, 9 to 12, 13 to 15, 16 to 17, 18 to 20, and 21 plus. Users in each age group can chat with people in groups directly and under their own. For example, users in the 9-12 age group can chat with people in their group, as well as those in the under 9 and 13-15 age groups.
If the age verification process incorrectly estimates a user’s age, they can appeal the decision and verify their age through other means, including ID verification or parental controls that allow parents to update their child’s age.
The company said when it released its Q4 2025 earnings this week that age-adjusted data reflects a younger user base than self-reported data. This is not surprising, and Roblox itself said that it expected this result. Of the 45% users tested by age, 35% are under 13, 38% are between 13 and 17, and 27% are over 18.
When the company introduced this new system, some concerns were raised about some loopholes. For example, Wired reported that eBay has a list of age-verified Roblox accounts for children as young as nine years old. Although eBay has removed the listing, concerns remain that buyers could gain access to accounts impersonating children by manipulating the system.
Roblox’s senior director of product policy, Eliza Jacobs, told TechCrunch on Friday that the company has ongoing age verification programs that work behind the scenes to address these issues and prevent this type of abuse.
Jacobs said the platform looks to see if there are “signals in your account that indicate that the age we have now in that account is not consistent with the activity in that account. Whether that’s the types of games you play, or who you talk to. We also have important stroke analysis. The way adults type is different from the way children type. So [we have] many systems work in the background to ensure that the age is correct for the person using the account. And if we have reason to believe it’s not accurate, we’ll introduce more testing to make sure we’re doing it right.”
He noted that another way Roblox checks age accuracy is by looking at how people use emojis. Older generations tend to use emojis at the end of sentences as a punctuation mark, while younger people tend to place them in the middle of sentences, explains Jacobs.
In addition to using age checks to make its platform more secure, Roblox CEO and co-founder David Baszucki said during the company’s earnings call that the information collected as a result of these checks will be used to increase revenue.
“We were able to find a larger growth opportunity in the 18-plus demographic than previously thought,” Baszucki said. “We estimate that our 18 and over group is growing by more than 50%, and this group makes 40% more money than younger groups.”
He went on to say that Roblox is developing its platform to support the growth of high-income genres popular with older users, such as shooters, RPGs, sports and racing.
Roblox says it will continue to improve its security measures to respond to emerging threats and user needs.
