We have updated our Terms of Use, Privacy Policy, and Community Rules on the Roblox platform, effective as of May 23, 2018. These updates are in preparation for the upcoming European General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) legislation. Our Terms of Use is globally unified and these changes will affect all users on the Roblox platform.
Summary of changes:
Please check out the Terms of Use found here and Roblox Community Rules found here for more information.
The rule has also been added to the Community Rules page under Section 2 (Personal Information).
Our Privacy Policy found here has been updated with information about our use of cookies and personal data. Residents of the European Union should read Section 14 of the updated Privacy Policy for more information (Information for EU Residents).
As a reminder, your game should never ask for or collect any PII (personally identifiable information) from your users. To find out more about what PII is and how GDPR now defines it, please go to the following website: https://gdpr-info.eu/. We also recommend collecting data based on the userâs unique numeric UserID instead of username.
Please be sure to read all of the content and changes thoroughly. This announcement does not represent the entirety of the changes made to the Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, or Community Rules.
Sensitive Personal Information. When you use our Services you agree not to post, ask for, collect or otherwise disclose any personal information relating to your physical or mental health, your racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, your sex life, or your sexual orientation. This includes any comment or message on group walls, private or public chat, forums or personal posts.
Why am I not allowed to share my philosophical beliefs on Roblox?
Related: does this mean weâre not allowed to say when we have a problem with our health, even if itâs relevant? Is âIâll be out for a week because Iâm having surgeryâ not allowed? Is âsorry, I was away because I was depressed, but I got some help for it and Iâm better nowâ not okay? Is âsure, Iâll get started! Keep in mind that it might take longer because I lost my arm in an accident a few years agoâ not okay?
Is a passing mention to religion not okay? Is âIâll be on in a few hours, got to go to churchâ not okay?
All of those can be relevant to working or playing on Roblox. Does âpersonal informationâ just mean details such as name, birth date, etc. or does it mean things like my examples above?
I feel like some of the listed things should only be âdo not ask for and do not collectâ only. Posting about them can be important and relevant for other reasons. The following seem to fit into that category:
physical health
mental health
religious beliefs
philosophical beliefs
All of these should not be collected or asked for, but they can be relevant for other reasons and itâs not at all clear or natural that one would avoid talking about them in such situations.
If you are a user based in the European Union, you may be entitled to exercise some or all of the following rights:
(âŚ)
Require (i) to receive the personal data concerning you, which you have provided to us, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format(âŚ)
This point (although was already stated before the update if I recall well) has caught my interest:
How would I request the data that was collected since my account was registered?
How would I prove being an EU resident? Or are you guys eventually opening those features to everybody regardless of where they lIve?
âcommonly used and machine-readable formatâ - while I interpretate it as a digital format (a .zip file for instance) file, could one legitimately interpretate it as âwe donât guarantee youâll be able to read what we sent yaâ?
âcommonly used and machine-readable formatâ - while I interpretate it as a digital format (a .zip file for instance) file, could one legitimately interpretate it as âwe donât guarantee youâll be able to read what we sent yaâ?
GDPR requires this data to be structured in machine-readable format, it is not merely a choice. The reasoning behind this is that you can download your data (contacts, messages, photos) from one service, and upload it to another. Itâs primarily meant for social media, telecom providers, and those types of services where end users should be free to choose who provides them with that service regardless of who âownsâ their data.
Whats so bad in informing your friends about your physical health or religion? Does it really create a danger?
EDIT #1
Okay i think i understand now, the GDPR doesnt allow collecting these data - well that explains it I guess. (correct me if im wrong about GDPR not allowing collection of that data)
Most businesses end up making these features available to all users, as itâs far more easy and convinient to make them available to everyone; instead of attempting to filter non-EU users, where they risk breaching the law-given rights of a miss-indentified user.
This has some very serious conflicts with the work that I have been doing on Roblox over the last several years which is explicitly religious work. When I get home from work, I plan to sit down and find some solutions to this. This is not okay.
GDPR also regards user ids as personal information. What is the proper way to collect data and link it to some (pseudonymized) individual? Do we need a privacy policy for each game on its own too, asking new players to agree to it before being able to play the game?
Obviously is necessary because putting out any form of uniqueness is dangerous and somebody could disagree now and days. While weâre at destroying what makes us different, I would like to request we all have the same avatars so nobody feels bad and nobody can make fun of someone else.
But in all seriousness, this is quite a stupid change to the terms of use. How exactly is my physical and mental health condition, race and ethnicity, political opinions, religion, sex life, and sexual orientation all sensitive information? I kind of feel like this is Roblox trying to be politically correct rather than protecting users. Nobody is ever going to be protected by not being able to say that they will be back in a bit because they have to go to Church.
How is Roblox promoting creativity if they are literally creating a box of what is not allowed because someone might get their feelings hurt? Not to mention, nobody can hurt each otherâs feelings in the first place considering the filter already filters everything. This change is also hurting a lot of large groups on Roblox and even fellow developers here on the DevForum. Ultimately, this change is going to probably hurt the platform considering is it driving aways groups of hundreds of thousands of players.
A group like True Colours no doubt is now against the terms of service and will probably be terminated within a few days unless it is completely changed or abandoned.
Itâs concerning that Roblox is making such a significant change that could result in the termination of many popular groups, especially without any advance notice and while leaving lots of unanswered questions on the table. Anyone whoâs in violation of these new rules could be punished right here and now, without any chance to fix their content to be in compliance. It seems customary for almost every website to provide a certain waiting period before new terms go into effect, so questions can be answered and people can adjust their existing content.
Though it looks like the rule in question was just now silently removed for the time being�
