Australia flags child-safety gaps on Steam and other gaming services

Australia’s eSafety Commissioner has identified gaps in child-safety protections on Steam, Roblox, Fortnite and Minecraft. Its assessment of the four services found substantial differences in their safeguards during the period from October 2025 to March 2026. [1]

Valve told the regulator that Steam and Steam Chat did not use tools that match images against previously identified child sexual abuse or violent material. On Steam Chat, its only proactive check of text and voice conversations was a URL tool that mainly blocked scams. Valve also described checks elsewhere on Steam, including reviews of games before publication. [1] [2]

Fortnite and Minecraft had safeguards for child accounts, but relied on players declaring their age at sign-up. Users who declared themselves adults could access some chats or, on Minecraft, third-party servers without the protections applied to child accounts. Roblox introduced age checks for chat in Australia in December 2025. [1] [2]

In a separate investigation, eSafety said its tests found that adults could send connection requests to young Australian children on Roblox without parental consent. In August, the regulator accepted a court-enforceable undertaking requiring Roblox to strengthen protections and arrange an independent audit. Roblox said it believed it was meeting its legal obligations. [3]