Roblox to (re)add parent accounts
Verified Parental Consent allows Roblox to comply with new legislation by giving providing parents tools to manage their child's experience
According to recently published translation keys and strings, Roblox is planning to reintroduce parent accounts on the platform under a feature called Verified Parental Consent, allowing them to control certain parts of their child’s experience in accordance with new legislation being introduced by governments across the globe.
“Roblox account with parental privileges”, referred to as Parent Accounts in this article, can be created when an account has been locked for unauthorized transactions, or if an account registered to a user under the age of 18 attempts certain actions on the Roblox platform. When this happens, an email is sent to the email account linked to the account, prompting the parent to accept or to deny the request.
If the parent chooses to accept the request however, the account linking flow will begin. If the email is new to Roblox, the parent will create their own Roblox account. After that, the parent must go through ID verification to complete the process. Up to 5 parent accounts can be linked to a child account.
Child accounts can be unlinked either automatically, once the birthday associated with the account correlates to the age of majority (in most of the world 18) or if the parent contacts Roblox Support.
Verified Parental Consent will also be added in the sign up flow for new users under the age of 18, although this process will not require ID verification or the creation of a parent account (although the option may present itself later). These users will be required to obtain an authentication code from their parent’s email address in order to create their Roblox account and to use the platform.
This unreleased feature comes after various countries such as the United Kingdom (see Explorers of the Metaverse coverage of the UK Online Safety Bill), in addition to several US states are looking to increase restrictions and surveillance on social media in a bid to “make children safer”. It is vital that these measures as scrutinised heavily to ensure that important digital rights are not violated by any government or corporate entities.
Parent accounts were previously a feature of the Roblox platform, being removed in the early 2010s.
UPDATE 29th Aug 2023: The age of majority for this feature is likely to be 18, as seen in translation strings published after the publication of this article. Mentions of the age of majority in this article have now been switched to only mentioning the age of 18. This also means that Verified Parental Consent will also be applied to users between the ages of 13 and 17 inclusive in jurisdictions where it is implemented, and the article has been updated accordingly.
All references to “Roblox accounts with parent privileges” (Parent accounts) discussed in this article are currently unreleased and may be modified or removed without notice. Explorers of the Metaverse is not liable for any damages or injuries which may result as of enabling these features yourself and is not able to guarantee the release of the unreleased features.