Red Barnet warns Roblox age checks can be bypassed

Adults can bypass Roblox’s age checks and contact children by buying existing child accounts, according to research by Red Barnet, DR reports. The organisation says the platform’s safety measures may give parents and children a false sense of security.

Red Barnet’s adult investigator was able to buy a Roblox account with a registered age of five to eight on Eldorado.gg, an external digital marketplace. The account already had an age, history and friends recorded, allowing the buyer to get around Roblox’s age verification, which uses facial recognition.

“The door to children’s room on Roblox is locked, but the key is for sale cheaply,” Red Barnet said. Malte Siglev, an adviser on digital child protection at the organisation, warned parents that adults may seek contact with children to groom them, even when a child’s account is set to allow chat only with peers.

Red Barnet’s counselling service SletDet handles grooming cases that began on Roblox. The platform introduced its age-verification system in November 2025, but the organisation says cases have continued.

Roblox is a game platform with millions of daily players. Users create games for others to play, and some games allow players to chat. Red Barnet says the platform is popular with younger children: its figures show that 80 per cent of children aged nine to 12 used Roblox in 2026. The figure comes from a survey of 2,142 respondents.

Eldorado.gg’s operations director, Lukas Šakalys, said in a statement that age-verified accounts can no longer be bought on the marketplace. The company said it prohibits such accounts from being listed or sold, regardless of the age group linked to them.

In August, the European Union tightened its oversight of several platforms, including Roblox. The service will be subject to the EU’s strictest digital rules and must examine how its services affect children and young people. The requirements apply to platforms with more than 45 million users in the EU.