Roblox facial age estimation errors

Roblox acknowledged in January 2026 that parents doing its age check for their children had put some kids in its 21+ age group. Users lose access to chat unless they complete the check, which became mandatory in the U.S. on January 7, 2026; Roblox said it would extend the requirement to every region with chat over the following week. Roblox's vendor Persona estimates a user's age from a short video recorded with the device's camera. WIRED reviewed hundreds of posts from players & parents claiming the system misidentified ages. Roblox told investors in its annual report for 2025 that its age-check methodology has misclassified a user's age. Roblox's 2026 agreements with the attorneys general of Nevada, Alabama & South Dakota commit it to behavioral monitoring to identify users who may have been aged incorrectly.

Misclassified ages after the January 2026 rollout

Roblox posted a roadmap update on January 9, 2026 in the Announcements category of its developer forum, where only Roblox staff members can create topics. The update said:

We are aware of instances where parents age check on behalf of their children leading to kids being aged to 21+. We are working on solutions to address this and we'll share more here soon.

Reports compiled by WIRED

WIRED reporter David Gilbert wrote on January 13, 2026 that experts said the AI was mis-aging young players as adults and vice versa. One user who says they are 23 was placed in the 16 to 17 group, according to a post on X that WIRED reported. Another user said they are 18 but Roblox still thought I was 13 to 15. A person on X claimed their 10-year-old sibling had been placed in the over-18 category.

WIRED reported that players also shared videos of people passing the check without showing their real faces, using avatars or, in one case, a photo of deceased Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain. In one widely shared clip, according to WIRED, a young boy who had drawn wrinkles & stubble on his face with black marker received an age rating of 21+.

Ry Terran, an independent extremism researcher who tracks networks exploiting Roblox to target young children, told WIRED:

I've seen a variety of posts online with suggestions for tricking the age verification system, but I think the most widespread danger is the large number of accounts that have been mistakenly filed into the wrong age category, and the new challenges for parents and in-game moderators to see if children are being exploited in the chat

Age-verified accounts sold on eBay

WIRED found multiple people advertising age-verified accounts for minors as young as 9 on eBay, priced as low as $4. After WIRED flagged the listings, eBay spokesperson Maddy Martinez said eBay was removing them for violating the site's policies.

Roblox's accuracy claims and disclosures

Roblox said on January 7, 2026 that the age estimation models used by Persona achieved a Mean Absolute Error of 1.4 years for users younger than 18, based on testing by the Age Check Certification Scheme in the U.K. A November 21, 2025 forum update cited third-party evaluations for its statement that Persona's technology has no material bias across age, sex, or skin tone, and demographics. That update also said there may be times when Facial Age Estimation gets the age of someone wrong.

Roblox's annual report for 2025, filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, told investors:

Notwithstanding our efforts, from time to time users have been able to evade our systems and our age-check methodology has misclassified a user's age. Evasion of our systems, misrepresentations of user age, or inaccuracies with our age-checking technology or policies have led to and may continue to lead to users being exposed to inappropriate content or behavior by participating in experiences that are not age-appropriate or gaining access to features we have restricted to older users.

The same filing said Roblox had at times experienced negative media coverage related to inaccuracies with our age-checking technology.

NBC News brought several children to Roblox's San Mateo, California headquarters in late May 2026 to try the tool, & it placed an 11-year-old wearing a fake mustache in the 9 to 12 age range. Eliza Jacobs, Roblox's vice president of safety product policy, told NBC News the tool estimates ages from facial structure & typically lands within 1.4 years of a child's exact age. She added: Certainly no system is perfect, and we know that sometimes it will get it wrong.

Background

WIRED reported on July 17, 2025 that users of Roblox's new Trusted Connections feature first had to complete an age verification by submitting a video selfie. Roblox said on January 7, 2026 that Trusted Connections let age-checked users 13 & older chat more freely with people they know beyond their immediate age group. Chief Safety Officer Matt Kaufman announced on September 4, 2025 a plan to expand age estimation, by the end of that year, to all Roblox users of the platform's communication features.

During a test that prompted users to age check without yet blocking their chat, Roblox wrote on October 30, 2025 that users would be required to be age checked to access chat early the next year. Roblox announced on November 18, 2025 that age checks would be required to access experience chat, Studio Team Create & external links. The requirement to chat took effect in Australia, New Zealand & the Netherlands on December 3, 2025. Roblox wrote on December 11, 2025 that users in those three countries were feeling isolated, & it let age-checked users there chat globally with age-checked users in similar age groups.

Six age groups and chat limits

Users 13 & older can verify their age with ID instead of the video. At launch in January 2026, Roblox assigned each checked user to one of six age groups: under 9, 9 to 12, 13 to 15, 16 to 17, 18 to 20, & 21+. By default, users can chat with their own group & the groups directly above & below it. Roblox said age-based chat is designed to prevent children younger than 16 from communicating with adults, & parental consent is required for users younger than 9 to access chat features.

Roblox's Help Center lists the groups as 5 to 8, 9 to 12, 13 to 15, 16 to 17, 18 to 20, & 21+, & says parental approval is required to complete facial age estimation in specific regions. CEO David Baszucki announced on April 13, 2026 that from early June, Roblox would automatically assign users ages 5 to 8, as determined by its age check or by a verified parent, to Roblox Kids accounts, where all communication is disabled by default. Users 9 to 15 go to Roblox Select accounts on the same basis.

Roblox's response

Kaufman told WIRED in an email that a change of this magnitude on a platform with over 150 million daily users takes time, saying You can't flip a switch while building something that hasn't existed before. He said tens of millions of users had already verified their age.

The January 9 roadmap listed the fixes available that day. Linked parents could correct the age of users under 18 placed in the incorrect age group, & users 13 & older could use a government-issued photo ID to correct their age. Roblox said it may periodically re-check users' age if fraud is suspected, & it promised users who age checked as over 18 a pathway to re-check in late January.

Re-checks on account transfer and behavior mismatch

Roblox's January 23, 2026 forum update added a new item to the roadmap:

Prevent users from being placed in the incorrect age group either by buying an account, or by having someone else complete an age check.

Roblox described two re-checks it was testing: one when an age-checked account changes ownership, & one when a user's behavior on Roblox is inconsistent with their current age. A January 30 edit to that post limited re-checks through account settings to users put in an age group over 18 via Facial Age Estimation.

A February 2026 forum update said anyone who has completed an age-check is eligible to be re-checked, including ID verified users, while noting that the re-check system was still in testing. Its example was a user who self-reported or age-checked as an adult but whose gameplay pattern over time indicates they may actually be a teen or child. Roblox marked the behavior-mismatch re-check as live in its March 26, 2026 update.

Roblox's shareholder letter for the fourth quarter of 2025 described planned continuous age estimation using play patterns, social graphs & economic activity to estimate users' ages. NBC News reported that the system weighs signals such as the time of day a user plays, the kinds of games they play & the language they use in chats.

Correction options in the Help Center

Parents can modify their child's birthday only once, according to Roblox's Help Center. ID verification is only available to users 13 & above. A user who self-reports as over 13 but is estimated as under 13 gets a 48-hour grace period before their age group is officially updated. Roblox removes certain personal data, including email & phone number, from users that facial age estimation places in the 5 to 8 or 9 to 12 group. A user mistakenly checked into an 18+ age group can undo their age-checked status.

Persona reference removed from the January 14 update

WIRED reported in July 2025 that biometric data from Roblox's video-selfie checks was deleted after 30 days, except where required in the case of a warrant or subpoena. A November 17, 2025 revision of Roblox's October 30 forum post said Roblox had changed its implementation of Persona's Facial Age Estimation technology & that images & video for all age checks are deleted immediately after the check is processed & complete. Roblox's January 7, 2026 announcement said the images & video are processed by Persona & deleted immediately after processing.

Roblox added an update dated January 14, 2026 to its January 9 roadmap post. An Internet Archive capture from that day shows the update stating:

Photos and videos collected through ID Verification and Facial Age Estimation are not considered biometric data, are not retained, and deleted immediately after processing by Persona.

A capture from January 15, 2026 shows a revised sentence without the reference to Persona, followed by an edit note:

Edit: Because both Roblox and Persona are involved in processing data for ID Verification and Facial Age Estimation, we removed the reference to Persona to avoid creating the impression that only Persona is doing the processing.

The same edit note appears on Roblox's January 7, 2026 launch post on the forum, whose body says images & videos are deleted after our vendor, Persona, processes and completes the check.

Chat use and user growth after the rollout

WIRED reported that one developer's data showed the share of players using text chat had dropped from an average of 85 percent to 36 percent. Through January 31, 2026, 45% of Roblox's daily active users had age-checked; of those, 35% were U13 (users aged 13 and under, as Roblox defines the term), 38% were 13 to 17 & 27% were over 18. Roblox told shareholders the rollout had created a mid-single-digit headwind to engagement growth and a low-single-digit headwind to bookings growth.

Roblox's shareholder letter for the first quarter of 2026 said:

We believe growth was also tempered by greater-than-expected headwinds from our age-check roll out, which restricted on-platform communication for non-age checked users, diluted communication for age-checked users, and slowed new user acquisition.

By the end of that quarter, 51% of global daily active users had age-checked, & 65% had in the U.S. The share reached 57% globally by the end of the second quarter. Roblox's quarterly report for the period ended June 30, 2026 said the mandatory age checks led to an unexpected decline in the rate of growth.

NBC News reported that Roblox's ramped-up safety effort correlated with a decline in daily active users from around 152 million in the third quarter of 2025 to 132 million in the first quarter of 2026.

Lawsuits and settlements

State agreements requiring behavioral monitoring

Nevada Attorney General Aaron D. Ford announced an agreement with Roblox on April 15, 2026 that includes a $10 million payment to encourage children to engage in non-digital programs. Under it, all users must undergo age verification, & Roblox committed to use facial age estimation & government-issued ID for age assurance & to use behavioral monitoring to identify users who may have been aged incorrectly. Alabama's $12.2 million settlement, announced April 21, 2026, carries the same facial age estimation, ID & behavioral monitoring commitments. South Dakota announced a $15 million settlement on July 13, 2026 in which Roblox likewise committed to behavioral monitoring to identify users who may have been aged incorrectly.

Los Angeles County complaint

The County of Los Angeles sued Roblox on February 19, 2026, alleging that Roblox failed to implement effective moderation or age verification systems. The complaint, filed in the Superior Court of the State of California for the County of Los Angeles on behalf of the People of the State of California, brings claims under the Unfair Competition Law (Bus. & Prof. Code § 17200), the False Advertising Law (Bus. & Prof. Code § 17500) & California public nuisance law (Cal. Civ. Code §§ 3479, 3480).

Citing WIRED, the complaint alleges that the AI system routinely misidentifies ages in both directions & that the facial system is trivially easy to defeat. It also quotes Roblox's developer forum acknowledgment that parents doing age checks for their children had led to kids being aged to 21+. The complaint alleges that Roblox knowingly deployed a flawed safety system on 150 million users.

Securities class action

The Police & Fire Retirement System of the City of Detroit filed a securities class action against Roblox in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on July 13, 2026. The suit covers investors who bought Roblox stock between October 31, 2024 & April 30, 2026. It alleges that Roblox announced growth in daily active users had declined by half following the global rollout of its age verification system, & that the stock fell 18.33%, from $55.26 on April 30, 2026 to $45.13 on May 1, 2026.

Ohio Attorney General Andy Wilson's office filed a motion seeking lead-plaintiff status in a class-action lawsuit accusing Roblox of misleading investors about its child-safety protections, on behalf of the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System & the State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio, the Columbus, Ohio television news outlet 10TV reported on August 10, 2026. Wilson's office said a series of regulatory actions forced Roblox to implement mandatory age verification, according to 10TV. Roblox's quarterly report for the period ended June 30, 2026 said:

We have been and may continue to be subject to legal proceedings asserting claims on behalf of shareholders related to allegations that discussions of our growth prospects have been misleading and unsustainable due to concerns related to safety, our implementation of parental controls, age-check systems, other trust and safety efforts, and the impact of viral content...

Consumer response

Players were in revolt within days of the global rollout because they could no longer chat with their friends, & developers were demanding that Roblox roll back the update, WIRED reported on January 13, 2026. Roblox's developer forum had drawn thousands of negative comments, with the vast majority calling for the update to be reversed. WIRED also reported that many users said online that they were unwilling to complete age verification over privacy concerns.

See also

• Roblox's problematic moderation