Roblox is testing facial age estimation technology as a new way to verify the ages of its players — and the company thinks the old method of simply checking a box no longer cuts it.
Eliza Jacobs, Roblox's vice president of safety product policy, told NBC News that the platform is "optimistic" the new technology will "continue to get better." In her words: "Ticking a box to say you're 13 or older, it's not enough anymore."
According to The Verge, NBC invited a group of kids to try out the technology as part of a demonstration, putting the system's accuracy to a real-world test.
Roblox has faced sustained scrutiny over how children interact on its platform, which is enormously popular with young audiences. Traditional age gates — where users simply select a birthdate or click a checkbox — are notoriously easy to circumvent. A child can claim to be an adult in seconds, and platforms have little way to push back.
Facial age estimation works differently: software analyzes a person's facial features in real time to estimate how old they are, without necessarily storing or identifying them. The goal is to make lying about your age significantly harder.
The approach is not without controversy. Critics have raised concerns about the accuracy of such systems across different ethnicities and skin tones, as well as broader privacy implications of collecting any biometric-style data from minors.
If it works as intended, it could set a new bar for how online platforms — especially those with young user bases — are expected to handle age verification, at a moment when regulators in the U.S. and abroad are pushing for stricter rules around kids online.