As an organisation working actively to prevent the online sexual exploitation of children, Destiny Rescue welcomes the latest action by Australia’s eSafety Commissioner.

The court-enforceable undertaking accepted from Roblox is an important step towards strengthening protections on one of Australia’s most popular gaming platforms. With an estimated 1.7 million Australian children using Roblox, making it the country’s second-most-popular game among young people, the effective implementation of these safeguards matters.

The issue, however, is bigger than one gaming platform.

For children, an online interaction with a stranger can be the beginning of grooming, sexual exploitation, sextortion or abuse, with potentially serious impacts on a child’s safety and wellbeing.

Online grooming does not necessarily begin with an obviously sexual conversation.

Gaming platforms can provide offenders with opportunities to identify children, build trust and gradually push boundaries. It can start with a friend request, a compliment, an invitation to play or an apparently harmless conversation.

Children should not be expected to recognise grooming behaviour or navigate complex privacy settings to protect themselves.

Parents and carers should not have to constantly monitor their children’s online interactions to identify unsafe adult contact.

Child safety must be built into platforms by design.

For organisations such as Destiny Rescue, working to prevent child sexual exploitation and abuse, this issue is about so much more.

Online sexual exploitation of children is a global crime, driven in part by offender demand and enabled by rapidly evolving technology.

Technology can enable offenders to identify, groom and exploit children across borders, while accelerating the scale and speed at which abuse can occur.

That means the response must include proactive detection, stronger accountability, early intervention and coordinated action across borders.

Frontline experience reinforces the need for action

Through its Counter-OSEC work, Destiny Rescue sees firsthand how technology, including gaming platforms, can be used to facilitate the sexual exploitation of children, extending offenders’ reach across digital platforms and borders.

In our 2026–27 Federal Pre-Budget Submission, Destiny Rescue calls for coordinated action to strengthen proactive detection, platform accountability, early intervention and international cooperation—helping close the structural gaps that allow online child sexual exploitation to occur across jurisdictions and digital systems.

Towards a safer digital world for children

Children deserve to connect online without being exposed to preventable opportunities for exploitation. Behind every account is a real child whose safety, dignity and future matter.

The recent action taken by the eSafety Commissioner demonstrates what stronger accountability can look like. Government, technology companies, law enforcement and organisations working to combat exploitation all have a role to play in building digital environments that make it harder for offenders to reach children and easier to detect and disrupt exploitation when it occurs.

Destiny Rescue will continue to advocate to the Australian Government and work alongside international partners to strengthen efforts to prevent exploitation, identify children at risk, support effective intervention and help children move towards freedom and safer futures.

Additional reading
● Destiny Rescue’s Australian Government Advocacy Efforts on this issue can be found here:
● Our work combatting OSEC here
● Our latest survivor rescues here