Australia’s online safety regulator has identified significant shortcomings in child protection measures across popular gaming platforms, including Steam, Roblox, Fortnite and Minecraft, raising concerns about children’s exposure to online predators and harmful content.
The report by the eSafety Commission found inconsistent approaches to safety measures across the platforms. The findings come as research indicates that 9 out of 10 Australian children aged 8 to 17 have played online games.
“Australian children have a right to play online without being exposed to predators, sexual extortionists, violent extremist content or other harmful material,” eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said.
Grant warned that weak safeguards could allow predatory adults to contact children and groom them for sexual exploitation or radicalisation.
The report identified Valve, the US gaming company that operates Steam and Steam Chat, as the only provider among those assessed that did not use a widely adopted technology to detect and remove known harmful content. Its systems also did not proactively detect child sexual exploitation or violent material in chats, focusing mainly on scams.
Roblox and Valve were also found to rely exclusively on internal datasets to train language detection systems, without regularly retraining their models.
“We expect these services to lift their game to identify and combat serious harms such as child sexual exploitation, sexual extortion and material and activity which promotes, incites or instructs violence,” Grant said.
Age verification was another concern. Minecraft and Fortnite generally allowed users to declare their own ages, potentially enabling people claiming to be adults to access higher-risk communication features. Steam also relied on self-declared ages, although the report noted its recent introduction of credit card-based age checks. Roblox has strengthened its age verification measures since December 2025.
The regulator also highlighted inconsistent cooperation between platforms in sharing information and participating in industry initiatives to combat online harm. Mojang Studios, which develops Minecraft, and Roblox shared expertise on tackling child sexual exploitation and violent extremism. Valve did not participate in this knowledge-sharing effort.
Epic Games, the developer of Fortnite, was also found not to have shared instances of breaches with other platforms through a global programme designed to combat online child sexual exploitation and abuse.
The assessment was based on information collected by the eSafety Commission between October 2025 and March 2026.
Roblox said it “prioritises the safety of our Australian community, especially the youngest users”. A company spokesperson added that it had “invested heavily” in child safety measures, including mandatory age checks. Valve, Epic Games and Microsoft, which owns Minecraft, were contacted for comment.
The findings come as Australia continues to tighten online safety regulations. The country introduced a landmark social media ban for users under 16 in December 2025, which excluded gaming platforms, and has also pushed technology companies to offer users the option to opt out of social media algorithms.
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