Roblox Reported My Child's Account: What a Parent Should Do First.

A report from a platform like Roblox is an allegation, not a legal finding. Being the subject of an investigation does not establish wrongdoing, although it does establish that you need to protect your child and prepare for whatever is next.

Not all reported account issues lead to law enforcement referrals, and many Roblox reports only involve account-level moderation. In many cases, parents only learn that their child’s account has been reported when a ban goes into effect.

The legal risks involved will depend entirely on what the report says. A child-victim report presents different risks than an accused-child report. An experienced criminal defense attorney can review your child’s report, explain what it means, and guide you through the steps you need to take to protect your family.

Along with the specific allegations, whether the report is based upon Roblox’s Terms of Use or upon federal criminal law makes a big difference. Roblox moderation can lead to account bans based on a violation of the platform’s Terms of Use, though such an incident may not necessarily rise to the level of criminal activity.

Roblox uses automated filters to review children’s content and communications. This means that an account can be flagged without a human moderator first reviewing the incident.

In many cases, the reports from Roblox reveal that the child was the victim rather than the perpetrator. For example, the FBI and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children warn that financially motivated sextortion schemes frequently target adolescent boys. The report from Roblox is often the first time a family discovers their child’s encounter with the 764 network.

Did Roblox report my child to NCMEC or to the police?

The report may have been filed with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), and if the child appears to be involved in child exploitation, federal law requires that. Under 18 U.S.C. § 2258A, any provider that is made aware of material that “constitutes a violation of this title [26]” must report it to NCMEC as soon as it “is reasonably able to determine that the material is child pornography.” If the child allegedly created or transmitted apparent child sexual abuse material or engaged in conduct covered by one of the listed federal offenses, the report from Roblox may have been based on these requirements.

The report may also have been submitted via NCMEC’s CyberTipline. NCMEC is a privately-operated organization that receives reports from providers and other sources. NCMEC makes CyberTipline reports available to law enforcement agencies, and it provides law enforcement with any relevant metadata about the user who reportedly created the content and any other relevant information in its possession.

It is important to understand NCMEC’s role. NCMEC itself has no investigative authority, subpoena power, or arrest authority. The report from Roblox is not necessarily an arrest warrant, a search warrant, or a federal indictment.

In May 2025, NCMEC reported that it received approximately 20.5 million CyberTipline reports in 2024, down from 36.2 million reports in 2023. At this volume, it is practically and logically impossible for the federal government to prosecute every reported individual. Even if Roblox reported the child’s activity to NCMEC, a lawful investigation may not follow, as law enforcement agencies are selective about which reports they investigate. However, if you have not yet retained counsel, you should not presume your child is not under investigation. You should contact an experienced federal criminal defense attorney who can use the attorney-client privilege to protect your child while you identify what Roblox reported to NCMEC or law enforcement.

If Roblox reported the child’s account to NCMEC or law enforcement, you need to obtain a copy of the CyberTipline report. CyberTipline reports are confidential, so parents do not receive copies, and you may submit a FOIA request to the appropriate agency to determine what information was sent to NCMEC. Even so, the platform will not notify the user when a CyberTipline report is made, and you will generally only receive notification that the report was filed in the event of an arrest warrant, a search warrant, or other court-authorized action.

Generally speaking, provider reports typically contain information such as:

• IP addresses
• Timestamps
• User IDs
• Email addresses
• Mobile device identifiers
• Communication and communication history
• Browser and OS history

Should My Child Keep Using the Roblox Account After a Report?

If Roblox bans your child’s account, the ban can be challenged through Roblox’s appeals process. If Roblox hasn’t banned your child’s account, you will need to make the decision to keep using the account or suspend use while you seek legal advice.

You can also change the password on the account. Doing so secures the account, but does not delete any historical account records or communications. This is a key distinction from deleting the account or deleting the contents of the account, both of which can expose you to serious risks in the event that law enforcement begins to investigate based on the report to NCMEC.

Alternatively, disabling chat and messaging functionality on the Roblox account will also protect your child from further contact. Just like changing a password, disabling communication on the account ensures that it does not erase the past conversations that your child had (or will have) on Roblox. Roblox’s privacy settings dashboard allows parents to control who can message their child, who can chat with them, and who can join their games. Parents can also enable two-factor authentication, which can help protect their children’s Roblox accounts against unauthorized use in the event that someone gets hold of their child’s account password.

Parents should also take steps to secure the email account that is linked to their child’s Roblox account. In addition to updating passwords and enabling two-factor authentication, parents should review the security settings of the email account in order to make sure that the account hasn’t been compromised by someone else.

If someone compromised your child’s account, Roblox offers account-compromise support to help parents and account owners regain control of the account. This is a very important step to take because, in these cases, you will want to be able to show that your child was not the one who sent the messages or engaged in the activity that triggered the report to NCMEC.

Finally, parents should also make sure that their children are not violating Roblox’s Terms of Use or other policies in any way. As long as their child’s conduct on the platform has not triggered a violation of the platform’s Terms of Use, Roblox has not barred children under the age of 13 from using the platform. However, using the platform is a privilege, and one that is conditional on compliance with the platform’s Terms of Use, Community Standards, and other rules.

How Do I Preserve Evidence Without Deleting or Sharing Anything Illegal?

One of the biggest risks for parents of children who have been reported for child exploitation is the risk of tampering with evidence. There are several ways that parents of children targeted for federal law enforcement investigations can expose themselves to liability in these cases, so it is vital to preserve all records of communication and communication history on all devices and accounts.

1. Destroying Records

Destroying records or altering records with the intent to impede or obstruct an official federal investigation or administration is a crime that can carry twenty years of imprisonment. So, if you received a report from NCMEC or are planning to discuss the report with the FBI, you must preserve all communications.

This rule also reaches conduct that occurs before the government is involved, because the statute covers records destroyed knowingly and with intent to impede a federal matter that is merely in contemplation, even if you or your child's attorney has no knowledge of an ongoing investigation.

2. Performing Factory Resets and Other Deletions

Performing a factory reset on your child’s device may erase all of your child’s data, including any metadata and other technical information that could be valuable in demonstrating a lack of criminal culpability. As for mobile phones, contents that are deleted from a phone may still survive in the user’s iCloud or Google account, making deletion practically worthless; it becomes potentially actionable as evidence tampering only if done knowingly with the requisite intent to impede, obstruct, or influence a covered federal matter.

3. Deleting Chat Logs on Roblox

Similar to communications on many other platforms, Roblox retains chat logs. Even if you delete all of your child’s communications on the account, Roblox will have records of the messages and potentially any shared images as well, and the company will produce these records when compelled to do so in response to a valid legal process.

4. Forwarding the Child’s Roblox Communications to the Company or Law Enforcement

You can also obtain any records regarding the communication history on the Roblox account, but you should not communicate directly with Roblox unless you are seeking a copy of the communications under the platform’s privacy requests or your child’s Terms of Use rights. To obtain records pertaining to the use of the platform by your minor child, you will need to request those records through the platform’s privacy request tool, which will generally require the parent to affirmatively attest that it is the parent or legal guardian of the child.

5. Copying the Child’s Communication, Images, or Videos to Another Account

If the communications on the account appear to involve illegal material, you cannot copy or forward these messages to your own account or communicate directly with the account that reported your child’s account to NCMEC or law enforcement. Copying a photo that shows child sexual abuse material or otherwise prohibited material and sending it to an account for the purpose of creating a backup or forwarding it to the platform, law enforcement, or a defense attorney constitutes federal possession of the materials themselves, potentially exposing you to liability.

In some cases, it may be appropriate to preserve the communication by taking screenshots. When documenting communication, a screenshot that preserves the child’s name and user ID, timestamps, the content of the full conversation, and the device the account was logged into is particularly valuable.

Todd Spodek is the managing partner of Spodek Law Group, a second generation criminal defense firm that has been practicing since 1976.

What Should I Do if the Police or the School Contacts Us?

If you have received a report from Roblox, you need to be prepared for the possibility of contact from law enforcement. Search warrants and other court-authorized actions typically occur several months after the fact when the federal government has conducted an adequate inquiry to substantiate law enforcement’s belief that there is a “fair probability” that evidence will be found.

If law enforcement officers show up to your home without a search warrant, they may be attempting to conduct a so-called “knock-and-talk.” They are entitled to ask questions that you may be willing to answer and they are entitled to examine whatever records and communication logs you choose to give them. However, agents need no warrant to ask these questions and they need no warrant to accept your consent to a search.

1. If Agents Ask to Search a Device or a House

You do not have to give consent. Agents are entitled to execute a search warrant, but if they do not have one, you have no obligation to allow agents into your home or give them permission to search your home or your devices. Consent can be general or limited in scope; it can also be withdrawn at any point during the search.

In some cases, parents’ and children’s consent to a search makes them eligible for a search. For example, a parent’s consent can be enough to authorize the search of a shared family computer. If a court-authorized search warrant has been executed, you should obtain a copy of the warrant and its return to protect the child’s rights and to protect against any unlawful searches.

2. If Law Enforcement Officers Question Your Child

Officers may question children without their parents’ or legal guardians’ consent, subject to applicable constitutional and state-law limits. In most cases, this can be handled with Miranda protections. A suspect may waive his or her Miranda rights and officers can lawfully conduct an interrogation without the presence of parents or legal counsel if the suspect is not in custody. Under 18 U.S.C. § 5033, an officer who takes a juvenile into federal custody must immediately advise the juvenile of his or her rights and notify the juvenile's parents, guardian, or custodian, and some states go further by requiring that a parent or attorney be present before a juvenile may be questioned.

3. If the School Contacts You Regarding Your Child’s Conduct on Roblox

If the school contacts you, this could mean a violation of the school’s policies occurred during a violation of Roblox’s policies. While schools only have disciplinary jurisdiction over conduct that occurs on school grounds or at school-sponsored events, schools can discipline students for any off-campus conduct that affects their school or the school’s environment. If school officials have copies of your child’s records from the platform or have had them in the school’s possession, school officials may have the authority to search the student’s device without parental consent, but it will still be important to contact an attorney to seek advice with regard to protecting your child.

When Should I Hire a Criminal Defense Lawyer for My Child?

Parents of children accused of involvement in cybercrime and exploitation have a choice to make. They can engage a lawyer, or they can try to handle the situation themselves. However, given the consequences of child-abuse allegations, parents should strongly consider talking to their child’s lawyer.

1. Legal Protection

As established in In re Gault (1967), juvenile delinquency proceedings must include the constitutional protections afforded to adult defendants. This includes a juvenile’s right to counsel in juvenile delinquency proceedings and, where Miranda applies, during custodial interrogation.

Although a parent cannot invoke the Fifth Amendment on their child’s behalf, a parent may still be subject to an investigation as a result of a child’s engagement in online misconduct. As a result, engaging a defense attorney to protect the parent and the child, and ensuring that law enforcement knows that a defense attorney is involved, will be critical to protecting the family’s interests.

Parents should also be cautious about how involved they get in their child’s defense. While a parent has a right to seek advice for the child, a parent’s presence in the attorney’s meetings and phone calls with the child will waive the attorney-client privilege.

2. Statements to Representatives and Law Enforcement

If a parent knows the platforms’ rules and policies, they will also know that speaking to company representatives is likely to serve no purpose. Anything a parent discloses to a platform representative that confirms a violation of the platform’s Terms of Use will be discoverable in court if the case progresses. With this in mind, contacting a criminal defense attorney is critical even if there is no reason to assume the case will progress.

3. Threats and Extortion

If your child has been accused of engaging in illegal behavior online, it may not be a case of child exploitation or sex trafficking. Instead, the child may have sent a threat and demanded payment in exchange for not exposing their target. This could potentially lead to juvenile-delinquency charges based on allegations of extortion.

4. Possession of Explicit Material

If your child shared an explicit image or video or was subject to blackmail after having shared an explicit image or video, a juvenile may be subject to juvenile-delinquency proceedings as well.

Finally, it is important for parents to remember that an injury lawyer or any other lawyer they engage to help their child who is the victim of a report will only represent their child’s interests in terms of seeking compensation for an injury and will not represent their child’s interests in a criminal defense case.

Can My Child or I Be Held Criminally Responsible for These Allegations?

A parent will not be held criminally responsible for their child’s criminal or non-criminal conduct on Roblox. Unless the parent is directly involved in the conduct, a juvenile’s act is separate from the act of the parent. There are statutes targeting “contributing-to-delinquency” which make parents responsible for contributing to their children’s delinquent acts, but these statutes target the conduct of the parent, not the conduct of the child. While nearly every state has such a statute in place to charge parents for contributing to the delinquency of a minor, these statutes punish the parent’s conduct, not the child’s. So, if your child’s account was reported to NCMEC, this does not necessarily expose you to criminal prosecution, even if your child is found to be guilty of a juvenile offense.

However, there are also civil parental responsibility statutes in nearly every state that allow the civil court system to hold parents financially responsible for any financial harm caused by their children. As a result, while a report to NCMEC may not expose you to criminal prosecution, it may still be possible that the victim of your child’s alleged online conduct may seek to have you held civilly liable.

2. Can a Juvenile Be Held Criminally Responsible for Crimes Committed Online?

Can juveniles be held criminally responsible for crimes that they commit? Technically, the answer is no, but that is a legal technicality. If a youth is found to have committed a crime, or is found to have violated the Terms of Use, Community Standards, or other policies of a platform like Roblox, or even federal criminal law, a juvenile court will make an adjudication of juvenile delinquency. This adjudication does not constitute a conviction. Juvenile courts are not criminal courts, and while an adjudication of juvenile delinquency is a serious matter, it is not the same as a criminal conviction. It will not create a criminal record that could follow your child through their application process for college or employment.

3. Can a Minor Be Charged with Producing or Possessing Child Sexual Abuse Material?

Under federal law, a juvenile is any individual who is under 18 years old when the offense in question occurs. While individuals under 18 can be charged, federal prosecutors generally do not charge minors depicted in images or videos that they have produced, sent, or possess of themselves. The reason is simple: a minor who is depicted in their own image or video is a victim, not a perpetrator. With this in mind, if your child has been groomed, then your child is also considered a victim, not a perpetrator, under federal law.

4. Does Roblox Require Arbitration and Waiver of Class Action Lawsuit Rights?

Yes. Roblox’s Terms of Use require all disputes to go through individual arbitration, and they also require all users to waive any class action lawsuit rights. Given these Terms of Use, if you do not use a lawyer to protect your family and you accept the implications of the report by giving up your child’s account access, you will not have any legal recourse under the law.

Get Advice on Your Situation

If you want someone to look at the specifics of your case, Spodek Law Group handles federal criminal defense nationwide from New York and Los Angeles. The firm has been practicing since 1976 and its motto is simple: we owe loyalty to only you. Call 212-300-5196.