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Roblox faces New York’s stricter child privacy, safety rules
New York Governor Kathy Hochul has announced plans to tighten online safety rules for children, including new regulations targeting platforms like Roblox.
The proposals, which will be detailed at Hochul’s upcoming State of the State address, would require online gaming services to verify users’ ages, set default child accounts to the highest privacy settings, and limit features such as AI chatbots for minors.
Parents would also have more control over in-game purchases on their children’s accounts.
Several US courts have struck down similar laws, but states continue to pursue new online protections for minors.
🔗 Source: The Verge
🧠 Food for thought
Implications, context, and why it matters.
Why New York’s proposed rules carry high legal risk
New York plans child online safety rules for gaming platforms. Proposals include age checks, default high privacy for minors, limits on AI chatbots for under-18 users, and tighter parental controls on in-game purchases.
- Federal courts have permanently blocked similar age-check laws for social media in Louisiana, Ohio, and Arkansas as unconstitutional under the First Amendment 123. The Louisiana court called its law “wildly underinclusive” and “vastly overinclusive” 1.
- The Supreme Court let Mississippi’s law stand, yet Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote it is “likely unconstitutional” 4.
Privacy-preserving age assurance vendors could gain if New York proceeds
- Platforms will need options beyond government IDs. Critics, including NetChoice (a trade association for technology companies), warn such databases create “honeypots” for hackers (attractive targets for data theft) 1.
- Providers can use tokenized assertions (cryptographic tokens that confirm an age check without exposing underlying data). Some use risk-based behavioral assessments (signals such as interaction patterns to infer likely age). Others apply zero-knowledge proofs (a cryptographic method to verify a claim without revealing the underlying information). These methods limit collection while meeting rules 56.
- California’s Digital Age Assurance Act will require device operating systems to send age bracket data via secure Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) by 2027, and investors can track vendors aligning with ISO/IEC 27566-1 (an international benchmark for age assurance systems that balances protection with privacy) 75.
