eSafety to test Roblox safety measures after reports of child exploitation
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The news: eSafety has put online game platform Roblox on notice on child grooming and sexual exploitation by announcing its intention to test the platform’s safety commitments made last year.
The context: In September 2025, Roblox made nine commitments to support compliance under the Online Safety Act to keep Australians, and in particular children, safe. It informed eSafety it had delivered on these commitments.
However, eSafety said it has been monitoring the delivery of the commitments and it remains highly concerned by ongoing reports of child exploitation.
eSafety can seek penalties of up to $49.5 million for non-compliance and will start assessing Roblox from 9 March.
Roblox's commitments included:
- Making accounts for users aged under 16 private by default and introducing tools to prevent adult users from contacting under 16s without parental consent;
- Switching off key features by default for children in Australia, such as direct chat and ‘experience chat’ within games, until the user has gone through age estimation.
- After a child aged under 16 has gone through age estimation and has chat enabled, they will be unable to chat with adults. Parental controls also allow parents to disable chat for 13- to 15-year-old users, on top of existing protections for under 13s.
- Voice Chat will also not be allowed between adults and 13–15-year-olds, in addition to the current prohibition on the use of this feature by under 13s.
What they said: eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said: “We remain highly concerned by ongoing reports regarding the exploitation of children on the Roblox service, and exposure to harmful material”.
“That’s why eSafety wrote to Roblox last week to notify them that, in addition to our ongoing compliance monitoring, we will also be directly testing the implementation of its commitments so that we have first-hand insights into this compliance," she said.
The source: eSafety media release
