Roblox still allows predators to contact children, says regulator

Roblox claimed to have made changes to its hugely popular children’s app to protect them from predators, but a regulatory authority says these protections are inadequate.

It found four major failings, including adults being able to send connection requests to children without parental approval …

Australia’s eSafety Commissioner today summarized the vulnerabilities discovered during testing:

• Adults could send connection requests to young Australian children without parental or carer consent; 
• Children and adults could view and respond to one another’s posts on forums outside game environments without parental or carer consent; 
• Children’s connections were visible to anyone on the Roblox platform;
• Children’s profiles and biographies, including account names, number and names of connections, avatar images, and non-sensitive biographical information such as their interests were visible to anyone on the Roblox platform, with no option to restrict the visibility of this information

The body said Roblox has agreed to implement stronger measures within three months:

• Preventing adults from contacting unknown children without parental consent
• Strengthening the account settings of children’s accounts so they are private by default
• Accessible reporting mechanisms that notify users of complaint outcomes 
• Engaging an independent third-party auditor to assess the effectiveness of its safety measures, including the deployment of its age-estimation measures

Roblox has more than 380 million active users, the majority of whom are under 16 years old.

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Image: Roblox