Roblox to require facial age verification for chat by January 2026

Roblox will require all users to complete facial age verification to access chat features starting January 2026.

The gaming platform is introducing this rule after lawsuits and investigations over child safety, including cases led by Texas and Louisiana attorneys general.

Users will be grouped into six age categories, with chat restricted to similar age groups to limit adult-minor interactions.

The verification process uses third-party vendor Persona, requiring users to use their device camera, with Roblox and Persona both saying they will delete images after processing.

Enforcement will begin in December in Australia, the Netherlands, and New Zealand before rolling out globally.

Roblox is also launching a Safety Center to give parents tools and resources for managing child accounts.

🔗 Source: TechCrunch

🧠 Food for thought

Implications, context, and why it matters.

Roblox’s age verification rollout faces significant friction with 40% of users aged 12 or under

Mandatory facial checks for chat begin in January 2026, which hits 40% of the audience who are 12 or younger 1. Many kids miss required hardware or parental sign-off, so engagement could fall.
The timing lines up with the UK Online Safety Act (a law aimed at reducing online harms, including child safety) requiring “highly effective” age assurance (methods to estimate or verify a user’s age) by July 25, 2025 2. Noncompliance can trigger fines of up to £18 million or 10% of global revenue 2.
Roblox targets 1 billion daily active users 3. Growth could slow in its core base because chat sits at the heart of play, and the company plans “Party” features for ages 9+ (a new social feature set) 3.

Age-check vendors see an opening as rules hit gaming worldwide

Compliance firms have a short window before the UK’s July 25, 2025 deadline 4. More countries are adopting age assurance rules, which expands demand.
Platforms that mirror Roblox’s plan are prime customers, especially those with youth-heavy bases in Australia, the Netherlands and New Zealand where enforcement starts in December.
Investors should back vendors with low-friction tools such as device-level filtering (on-device checks that avoid uploading sensitive images) or tokenization (replacing sensitive data with non-sensitive tokens) 2. Platforms want options that cut drop-off while meeting the “highly effective” bar regulators set.