Australian regulator secures independent security audit of Roblox
The Australian online safety regulator, eSafety, has secured a commitment from the gaming platform Roblox to strengthen protections for children against grooming and sexual exploitation. If the company fails to fulfill these commitments, the regulator will be able to petition the Federal Court of Australia to ensure compliance.
According to ABC News Australia, during testing, eSafety found that unknown adults could send friend requests to young Australian children on Roblox without parental consent. In addition, children and adults could communicate on forums outside of games without parental approval. Other users also had access to children’s contact details, profiles, and other information.
Roblox has three months to address the issues identified by the regulator. Among the requirements are preventing adults from contacting unknown children without parental consent, making children’s accounts private by default, and improving mechanisms for filing complaints and notifying users of the results of their review.
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The company, headquartered in San Mateo, California, must also engage an independent external auditor. The auditor will assess the effectiveness of the platform’s safety measures, including its user age verification technology. eSafety stated that this is the first time it has required a technology company to conduct an external security audit.
A Roblox spokesperson stated that the platform has fulfilled the commitments it made to eSafety over the past 12 months and will continue to work to protect Australian children online. Earlier this year, the regulator had already issued a warning to Roblox regarding child safety. Last September, the platform informed eSafety that it had implemented nine specific commitments to protect underage users.
