Canberra (GNP): Online Gaming Child Safety has come under renewed scrutiny in Australia after the country’s online safety regulator identified significant differences in the measures used by major gaming services to protect children from serious online harms. The review examined Roblox, Steam, Minecraft and Fortnite and focused on protections against child sexual exploitation, sexual extortion, violent material and other harmful activity.
Online Gaming Child Safety has become an important concern as children increasingly spend time on gaming platforms and related communication services.
There were significant differences in terms of safety features used by different gaming platforms. Although certain platforms added extra security features, the regulator claimed there were significant deficiencies in protecting users from harm and dealing with it. This report is based on the data submitted by the gaming service providers upon the issuance of the mandatory transparency notices regarding activities during October 2025 – March 2026.
The Online Gaming Child Safety review highlights how different companies use different approaches to prevent and respond to harmful online activity.
Both Steam and Steam Chat had issues with the detection systems used by them. There were no hash-matching algorithms for identifying harmful material on these platforms. Hash matching algorithms allow platforms to identify known harmful content without reviewing it every time anew.
For Online Gaming Child Safety, content detection tools are particularly important because harmful material can spread through gaming communities and communication features.
The company responsible for Steam platform (Valve) did not have proactive methods for detecting the presence of harmful material on text or voice messages in Steam Chat and Steam Community group chats. The existing URL detection feature was mostly designed to stop scams.
Online Gaming Child Safety also involves monitoring communication spaces where children may interact with other users.
Another important challenge is age verification. At that time, Valve did not obtain age data from users when they registered at Steam and Steam Chat and allowed them to declare their age. It leads to problems for platforms that try to protect children and adults differently.
Effective Online Gaming Child Safety can depend on accurate age assurance systems that help platforms apply suitable protections to younger users.
In addition, Roblox had been using internal datasets to train its language-analysis systems and did not retrain several other tools regularly. The Image Auto-mod tool, which was responsible for detecting violent content and CSAM/CEMA in images, showed a recall rate of 51%.
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The findings therefore connect Online Gaming Child Safety with the ability of automated systems to identify harmful images and other risky material.
Finally, the study revealed differences between the methods used by gaming companies to identify repeat offenders. While some providers used multiple signals to detect banned or suspended users trying to register again, Valve used less signals. Regulators believed that weaker identification mechanisms would make it possible for repeat offenders to join the service again.
Online Gaming Child Safety requires platforms to consider not only initial detection but also whether previously banned users can return to the service.
Roblox has strengthened the age assurance process in Australia, starting from December 2025. The company implemented more strict age verification processes and limited access to some risky features of the platform available for adult users in Australia. Other previously committed steps include making accounts of users younger than 16 years private by default and limiting communication between kids and adults in specific cases.
The topic is especially relevant due to the widespread use of online games among Australian children. It was revealed that almost nine out of ten children aged eight to 17 years old had already played online games which increased the importance of good safety systems for all gamers.
It does not mean that all games and services are equally dangerous and none of the safety systems work effectively. Actually, there are significant differences between the ways of detection of harmful content, age verification, communication moderation and actions against banned users of different companies.
Nowadays, Online Gaming Child Safety largely depends on companies’ abilities to implement protection in the very platforms used by children. The monitoring of compliance and regulatory activities are being continued by Australian regulators.
