The company said it will start implementing the changes from Monday, and they will be fully implemented by the end of March 2025.

It means that young children will still be able to access public conversations seen by everyone in games – so they can still talk to their friends – but they can’t have private conversations without parental consent.

Matt Kaufman, Roblox’s chief safety officer, said the game is played by 88 million people every day, and that more than 10 percent of its total employees — the equivalent of thousands of people — work on the platform’s safety features.

“As our platform has grown in scale, we’ve always recognized that our approach to security must evolve with it,” he said.

In addition to banning kids from sending direct messages (DMs) on the platform, it will give parents more ways to easily see and manage their child’s activity.

Parents and guardians must verify their identity and age with a government-issued ID or credit card to access parental permissions for their child through their own connected account.

But he acknowledged that identity verification is a challenge many tech companies face and urged parents to make sure a child is the correct age on their account.

“Our goal is to keep all users safe, regardless of their age,” he said.

“We encourage parents to work with their children to set up their accounts and hopefully ensure their children are using their correct age when signing up.”