A month after introducing mandatory facial recognition to access chat on the platform, Roblox said that as of January 31st, 45% of its daily active users were age-tested.
The launch of Roblox’s age checks comes on the heels of a series of lawsuits over child safety, including lawsuits from the attorneys general of Texas, Kentucky, and Louisiana. The lawsuit was filed in the wake of reports that Roblox is exposing young users to dangerous risks such as grooming and explicit content.
To complete the age verification process, users must open the Roblox app, grant camera access, and follow a series of on-screen instructions for facial recognition. Once age verification is complete, Roblox says all of the user’s images and videos will be removed. Roblox says verification will be handled by Persona, a third-party vendor, and images and videos will also be deleted after the process is complete.
Once a user completes the age check, they will be able to access age-based chats. This means that you can only communicate with other users in your same age group. There are six age groups: Under 9, 9-12, 13-15, 16-17, 18-20, and 21+. Users in each age group can chat with people in the groups above and below them. For example, users in the 9-12 year old category can chat not only with users in their own group, but also with users in the under 9 and 13-15 age groups.
If the age verification process incorrectly estimates a user’s age, you can appeal the decision and verify age through another method, such as ID verification or parental controls that allow parents to update their child’s age.
The company said in its Q4 2025 earnings call this week that age-checked data reveals a younger user base than self-reported data. This is not surprising, and Roblox itself has said that it expected this result. Of the 45% of users who were age-verified, 35% were under 13 years old, 38% were between 13 and 17 years old, and 27% were over 18 years old.
As the company rolled out the new process, some concerns arose regarding certain loopholes. For example, Wired reported that eBay has a list of age-verified Roblox accounts aimed at minors as young as 9 years old. Even though eBay has removed the listings, there are still concerns that criminals could trick the system and gain access to accounts pretending to be minors.
Eliza Jacobs, Roblox’s senior director of product policy, told TechCrunch on Friday that the company is addressing these concerns and running a continuous age-checking system in the background to prevent this type of abuse.
Jacobs said the platform is “looking at your account to see if there are any signals in your account that indicate the current age on your account doesn’t match your activity on that account, such as the type of game you’re playing or who you’re talking to. It’s also analyzing your keystrokes. The way adults type is different from the way children type. [we have] Many systems run in the background to ensure that the age of the person actually using the account is accurate. And if you have any reason to believe it’s not accurate, introduce additional checks to make sure it’s correct. ”
She pointed out that another way Roblox looks at age accuracy is by looking at how people use emojis. Jacobs said older generations tend to use emojis as punctuation marks at the end of sentences, while younger generations often place them in the middle of sentences.
Roblox CEO and co-founder David Baszucki said on the company’s earnings call that in addition to using age checks to make the platform more secure, the data collected as a result of these checks will be used to drive revenue.
“We were able to identify greater growth opportunities in the 18+ demographic than previously anticipated,” Baszucki said. “The 18+ cohort is estimated to have grown by more than 50%, and this cohort earns 40% more than younger cohorts.”
He went on to say that Roblox is optimizing its platform to foster growth in high-revenue genres that are popular with older users, such as shooters, RPGs, sports, and racing.
Roblox says it will continue to enhance safety measures to address evolving risks and user needs.
