Roblox, being a game and platform primarily for kids, has announced the rollout of new safety features. Part of this involves getting teens between 13 and 17 to take a video selfie of themselves to prove that they are indeed within said age range.
As part of the new features being introduced, Roblox is first changing Friends to Connections. Building on that is Trusted Connections that allows for unfiltered text chat and Party voice chat. Teens within the aforementioned age range can add each other as a Trusted Connection once their age has been verified.
Said verification process involves taking a video selfie. This is then “analysed against a large and diverse dataset to estimate their age”. If a teen within the age range wants to add an adult to their Trusted Connections, they will have to know each other in real life. This is because the process can only be completed through a QR scan or the Contact Importer.
It’s far from a fool-proof method though. There’s still a chance that the system in place fails to estimate a user’s age “with high confidence”. When this happens, Roblox says that they will remain unverified. From this point, they will have to confirm their age through ID verification. “Verified parental consent” will also be another alternative, but sometime in the future.
(Source: Roblox)
