Roblox Age Verification System Fooled by Hand Drawn Facial Hair

Roblox opted to use state of the art AI to bolster its age verification system. It went about as well as you’d expect.

It’s no secret that age verification is a broken technology. It’s also no secret that AI (Artificial Intelligence) is an overhyped disaster. So, what happens when you combine the two? Well, you get one giant mess. Roblox is just the latest company finding this out the hard way.

When the age verification snake oil first started rolling out, the peddlers of that technology argued that it was absolutely bullet proof. Not only that, but they proclaimed that it was easy to implement and perfected technology, so there was never any reason to worry that it would be anything other than that. When things didn’t work out, the snake oil salesmen pushing this technology doubled down (along with the bought out politicians) who argued that the only reason for the failures was because the platforms didn’t implement it correctly. Age verification, they argue, uses the power of AI now, so it is doubly super duper ultra effective.

Reality, obviously, had different ideas. Research concluded that the industry leading technology was a complete disaster. Under age people were being let through, age verification was fooled by a golden retriever, people were flocking to VPNs to defeat it, governments have been sued, there was the Discord breach, the AgeGO scandal, and additional leaks and breaches that occurred along the way.

So, what do age verification supporters do in response? Go in complete denial. Mainstream media busily went to work completely re-writing history and argued that everything is going swimmingly, arguing implementation has happened with ‘barely a hitch’. Politicians like those in Ireland and France decided to double down and push for similar failed laws while trying to ignore the massive amounts of problems such technology has had. You know, the tried and true strategy of shoving your head in the sand.

Some platforms, eager to throw their users under the bus, have been proactively implementing age verification. Others took more of a defeatist attitude and argued that this is the world that we live in. Whether it is enthusiasm or defeatist attitudes, the end result is the same. The platforms have decided to endanger their users personal information because fighting such terrible laws and standing up for their users is just too damned hard. So, easy way out it is.

Of course, none of this changes just how broken age verification laws truly are. They will continue to fail in pretty spectacular ways. Recently, Roblox, one of the many services implementing age verification, has found out the hard way just how embarrassingly bad age verification truly is. Under age people are getting through and, in at least one instance, an under age person who hand drew facial hair successfully fooled the system. From Engadget:

One kid spoofed the selfie system by drawing a mustache and stubble on his face.

So, it might not be hyperbole to say Roblox’s survival could depend on how it handles this problem. It isn’t exactly off to a hot start. There are reports of a 23-year-old being misidentified as a 16- to 17-year-old. (“I don’t want to be chatting with fucking children,” they said.) Another report claimed an 18-year-old was placed in the 13 to 15 range.

But the problem is happening in reverse, too. Online videos show children spoofing the system into believing they were adults by using avatar images. One clever kid drew wrinkles and stubble on his face and was instantly deemed 21+. Another flashed a photo of Kurt Cobain and got an adult classification.

In addition, Roblox posted last week that some parents were providing age checks on behalf of their children, leading to their children being placed in the 21+ category. The company said it’s “working on solutions to address” that particular problem and will share more soon.

Developers with games on Roblox are upset. The platform’s dev forum includes thousands of negative comments about the updates, with many of them wanting the entire update reversed. One shared a graph showing that the percentage using the chat feature dropped from around 90 percent to 36.5 percent.

This whole sorry incident reminds me of a scene from The Simpsons movie. While the Simpson family was wanted by authorities, they pick up supplies at a store. While shopping, Marge spots a wanted poster of them. Marge goes to distract the shop keeper while Bart sneaks in behind and crudely draws alterations. Right after, the shop keeper glances up, freaks out, and wrongly accuses a different family that looks similar to the crude drawing. The scene in question:

It’s a silly gag, but one that apparently worked in real life with supposedly state of the art, AI powered age verification technology.

As I’ve said in previous reports when there were previous embarrassments, it wasn’t going to be the last time this sort of thing happens. That ended up being true here and, because nothing has fundamentally changed with the technology, I suspect this won’t even be the last embarrassment either.

Drew Wilson on Mastodon, Twitter and Facebook.