Fortnite, Roblox, Minecraft and Steam should enhance baby security, Australian report finds

Australia’s on-line security regulator has discovered “important gaps” in how well-liked gaming platforms defend youngsters on-line.

In a brand new report it discovered inconsistent approaches in how Steam, Roblox, Fortnite and Minecraft implement baby security measures as analysis reveals 9 out of 10 youngsters aged 8 to 17 in Australia have performed on-line video games.

“Australian youngsters have a proper to play on-line with out being uncovered to predators, sexual extortionists, violent extremist content material or different dangerous materials,” eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant stated.

Weak security on platforms enable “predatory adults” to make contact with youngsters earlier than grooming them, she stated, for sexual exploitation or radicalisation.

The report discovered that Valve – the US gaming large that owns Steam and Steam Chat – was the one supplier that didn’t use a kind of know-how broadly utilized by the trade to detect and take away recognized dangerous content material.

Valve additionally didn’t “proactively” use instruments to detect baby sexual exploitation or violent materials in chats, with present programs primarily flagging scams, the report discovered.

Roblox, together with Valve, had been famous within the report as utilizing solely inside datasets to coach language detection programs and for not often retraining these fashions.

“We anticipate these companies to carry their recreation to establish and fight severe harms akin to baby sexual exploitation, sexual extortion and materials and exercise which promotes, incites or instructs violence,” Inman-Grant stated.

Minecraft and Fortnite, which does provide baby accounts, typically let customers self-declare their age, the report highlighted, that means anybody who stated they had been adults may entry “higher-risk communication options”.

Steam additionally relied on customers self-declaring their age however the report acknowledged the platform had lately launched age checks utilizing bank cards, and that Roblox had put in stronger age checks since final December.

One other challenge raised by the report was the inconsistent method by which the 4 gaming platforms shared info and took part in trade initiatives.

Mojang Studios, developer of Minecraft, and Roblox shared trade experience in combating baby sexual exploitation in addition to violent extremism on-line, however Valve didn’t.

Elsewhere, Fortnite maker Epic Video games did not share cases of breaches with different platforms underneath a worldwide programme that was designed to fight on-line baby sexual exploitation and abuse.

The report was primarily based on info collected by Australia’s eSafety Fee on how the platforms had been defending customers from severe on-line hurt between October 2025 and March 2026.

Australia has made international headlines lately for its stance on on-line security, after it launched its world-leading social media ban for under-16s final December – which didn’t embrace gaming platforms – and a newer push to power tech giants to supply customers an opportunity to opt-out of social media algorithms.

Valve, Fortnite, Roblox and Microsoft – which owns Minecraft – have been contacted for remark.