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Digital ID / 53 mins ago

Roblox to Mandate Facial and ID Verification

Censorship Industrial Complex / 60 mins ago

Move over Soviet Russia: UK Police Make 10,000 Arrests Over “Offensive” Online Speech

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New airline compensation rules could threaten regional travel and push up ticket prices

Digital ID

Roblox to Mandate Facial and ID Verification

Published on November 21, 2025

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By Cindy Harper

The platform’s age checks are part of a bigger push to create online spaces policed by biometrics.

The rollout begins this week as an optional process and will become compulsory in December in countries including Australia, the Netherlands, and New Zealand, reaching the United States and other regions by early 2026.
The company says these steps are meant to make its vast online world safer for younger audiences, restricting how players of different ages can interact inside user-created “Experiences.”
To take part in chat features, users must now verify their age either by scanning a government-issued ID or recording a short facial video through Persona, an outside verification company.
Conversations are limited to others in the same or adjacent age groups unless users connect through “Trusted Connections,” which verifies they have a real-world relationship.
Roblox says the goal is to limit unsafe interactions and hopes the model will become “a new industry standard.”
While promoted as a safety improvement, this model also signals a move toward identity-linked participation in online spaces.
Digital ID verification effectively removes the anonymity that has long been part of internet culture.
It ties access to personal credentials, leaving fewer opportunities for users to interact without surrendering identifiable data.
The same technologies now appearing on entertainment platforms are increasingly being discussed by US policymakers as potential requirements for accessing social media, adult content, or even general-purpose platforms.
Several US states have already passed or proposed laws mandating age verification or digital ID checks for online activity, a trend that privacy advocates warn could erode personal freedom and create databases of sensitive personal information.
According to Roblox, “information uploaded to Persona is retained for a period of 30 days” before deletion.
Persona’s privacy policy indicates that it may collect extensive information, including device identifiers, geolocation data, and records from brokers and public sources.
This wide net of data collection extends well beyond what is required to confirm age, deepening concerns about how biometric and ID data could be reused or shared.
The company has not specified exact rollout dates for all markets but expects global enforcement to be completed within a year.
This makes Roblox the first major online platform to require facial age checks for chat participation.
The move comes as Roblox faces ongoing lawsuits and public pressure related to reports of grooming and child exploitation on the platform.
On the same day the company revealed its latest update, advocacy groups UltraViolet and ParentsTogether Action hosted an online protest, submitting a petition signed by 10,000 parents and grandparents calling for stronger child safety rules.
Roblox also introduced a new Safety Center, described as “a dedicated resource for parents and caregivers that provides clear guidance and tools to help them make informed decisions, set up Parental Controls, and support their child’s online experience.”
Still, the underlying trade-off remains significant. Roblox’s “Facial Media Capture Privacy Notice” confirms that it may conduct “other facial media processing” for “safety, assurance, or feature-specific purposes,” though the company says “Roblox does not use such facial media to identify you personally.”
Yet by normalizing ID scans and biometric checks, the company moves closer to a model of online life where anonymity is the exception rather than the rule, a change that could permanently alter how people experience privacy in digital environments.
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Censorship Industrial Complex

Move over Soviet Russia: UK Police Make 10,000 Arrests Over “Offensive” Online Speech

Published on November 21, 2025

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By Cam Wakefield

In a nation where 90 percent of crimes go unsolved, the real emergency seems to be someone being offensive online.

Let’s get something straight. If you’re reading this from inside the United Kingdom and you’ve ever committed the heinous act of sarcasm on the internet, better close the curtains. The police might be on their way. Armed, possibly. With body cams. And a warrant to seize your copy of The Complete Fawlty Towers, just in case.
Last year, British police arrested nearly 10,000 people for saying things online that someone, somewhere, decided were “offensive.”
According to data pried out of police forces by the Daily Mail, that’s around 26 people a day. And yes, some of those probably were saying awful things. But many were not. Many were simply annoying. And in the UK now, being annoying online is grounds for a knock at the door.
The arrests were made under laws like the Communications Act 2003 and the Malicious Communications Act 1988, pieces of legislation drafted before TikTok existed, and when “going viral” still referred to the flu.
These laws were originally written to stop actual threats. Not to stop someone from tweeting something sarcastic about climate protesters.
But times have changed. Cumbria Constabulary, apparently keen to earn their badge in “Feelings Policing,” clocked in 217 arrests last year. That’s 42.5 arrests per 100,000 residents.
Meanwhile, Staffordshire managed only 21. What were they doing instead, catching burglars? How outdated.
Gwent Police weren’t far behind, either. The Welsh force made 204 arrests.
Toby Young of the Free Speech Union called the number “alarmingly high.” His assessment may be generous.
What’s truly Olympic-level absurd is the sheer inconsistency. If you’re a bit spicy with your language in Cumbria, you might be arrested before the kettle boils. In Staffordshire, you’d likely get nothing but a raised eyebrow and a politely worded leaflet.
David Spencer from Policy Exchange nailed it when he said, “The variance in approach by police forces suggests that how much freedom of speech we are allowed depends on where we live.”
A troubling sentence, because once you need a zipcode to know what jokes are legal, the country starts to resemble something more out of Kafka.
Polling suggests only 7 percent of people think online “hate speech” should be a police priority. Seven percent! Yet Britain’s police are allocating significant resources to patrol the pixelated badlands of X and Facebook while 90 percent of actual crimes went unsolved last year.
So, to recap: Your house gets burgled? Fill out a form and cross your fingers. Criticize the government’s foreign policy on Facebook? Patrol car, cuffs, and possible prison time.
It doesn’t help that the laws in question use terms like “grossly offensive” and “insulting” without defining them. As Lord Frost pointed out in the House of Lords: “’Grossly offensive’, ‘abusive’, ‘insulting’ and ‘false’ – says who?” Exactly. It’s like trying to enforce a speed limit based on whether the officer feels you were driving too smugly.
Here’s the cherry on the dystopian sundae: According to Free Speech Union’s Toby Young, Russia arrested 3,253 people last year for online speech. Britain arrested four times that. That’s embarrassing and the sort of international statistic that ought to appear in Amnesty International reports.
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