Is Roblox Safe for Kids? Persona CEO Talks Age Verification (EXCLUSIVE)

A massively popular game, Roblox attracts players of all ages. The online platform is the host of plenty of games and experiences, from horror games like Doors and Rainbow Friends to an Among Us knockoff — but with the sheer amount of content available, is it a safe platform for its younger players?

Roblox has implemented plenty of safety measures for its younger players, like having a required age verification before using features like voice chat, but some parents are still hesitant to give their young gamers access to the platform.

To help answer this question, we spoke with Rick Song, the CEO of Persona, the age-verification vendor for Roblox. Rick was able to give us some insight into the platform’s safety measures to help parents make more informed decisions for their children.

To be clear, whether or not Roblox is actually safe for kids is entirely up to the parents’ discretion, but Rick reassured us that the work his company has done with the online gaming platform makes him hopeful, as it’s been receptive and intentional in implementing safety measures.

“I think it’s a lot more about if [companies] are taking an effort seriously and making progress,” Rick said. “And in that respect, I would say [Roblox is] 100 percent and, in many ways, much more so than many of the platforms out there.”

Roblox will sometimes ask a child’s parent or guardian to provide a photo ID to confirm that they’re who they say they are in an attempt to ensure children are using the site safely.

“I think what has become problematic though, as of the last decade, has really just been that more kids are on the internet than ever before,” Rick said. “And I think the last 20 years of how we’ve dealt with age-gated content has been these, I would say rather pseudo disclaimers.”

Anyone who has played just about any online game knows that to bypass much of the age-restricted content on the internet, all one has to do is input a birthday that makes them older than the age required for access. There’s little in place in many corners of the internet to verify whether or not the participant is as old as they say they are, though Rick’s company is one attempting to help put better parameters in place.

While there’s still massive room for improvement across the board, Rick said that Roblox‘s efforts to help regulate who has access to the content on its site, even as it changes and evolves with its audience, makes him hopeful.

“One thing I think has been really kind of exciting [working with Roblox] has been how seriously they are actually taking this age verification problem, especially as they release more and more material [targeting adults],” Rick said. “They’re taking that really seriously and a big part of it that I think they’ve been really thoughtful about is on the intersection between like data privacy and consent.”