NEWS | The Department of Information and Communications Technology says Roblox is preparing to set up a local office in the Philippines and link its platform to the country's national ID system, two commitments the company has yet to complete out of five total demands made earlier this year. A Philippine delegation met with Roblox executives in Singapore this week to check on progress.
The push traces back to talks that started in April 2026, when regulators warned Roblox it could face a ban over child safety concerns, including weak age verification that let minors register as adults and vice versa. Roblox has already rolled out default parental controls, chat monitoring for violent behavior, and age based game classification. The two outstanding items, tying accounts to the Philippine Identification System and opening a physical office, are considered the harder commitments since they involve deeper system changes and a permanent local presence.
Linking to the national ID system would replace self reported birthdays and face scans with a verification method that is much harder to fake, while a local office would give Philippine authorities a direct point of contact instead of routing every request through an overseas support channel. Officials say Roblox has until October to complete both.
BMN's view is that how Roblox handles these final two steps could shape how other global platforms are expected to operate in the Philippines going forward, since national ID integration in particular sets a much higher bar than what most gaming platforms currently require anywhere in the world.
If Roblox meets the October deadline, would that finally settle the safety debate, or just shift it to a new set of questions about data and privacy?
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