Missouri’s Attorney General has given Microsoft 30 days to propose a plan addressing alleged child-safety weaknesses on Xbox Live, including age verification, parental controls and chat safeguards.
Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway has asked Microsoft to address alleged child-safety weaknesses on Xbox Live, following concerns that minors have been targeted by predators through the platform.
In a letter dated 1 October 2026, the Attorney General cited recent Missouri cases involving alleged harassment, stalking and sexually explicit communications with children. She said the cases raised questions about whether Xbox Live has adequate safeguards for its younger users.
The letter identifies several areas of concern, including age verification that may rely too heavily on users’ self-reported age, parental controls, protections for voice and text chat, reporting tools, safety information for minors, and systems for assessing whether existing safety measures are effective.
Microsoft has been asked to respond within 30 days with a plan addressing the concerns, including stronger age-verification measures. The Attorney General stressed that the concerns remain allegations and said they would amount to a serious failure to protect children if substantiated.
The Missouri letter is not the first time Xbox has faced US scrutiny over protections for younger users. In 2023, Microsoft agreed to pay $20 million to settle Federal Trade Commission charges over the collection of children’s personal information on Xbox without parental consent. While that case focused on privacy, the current Missouri action broadens the focus to how children are protected when they interact with others on the platform.
Why does it matter?
US child-safety scrutiny has recently focused heavily on social media, but Missouri’s action shows that gaming platforms are also coming under closer attention where children can communicate and form connections with other users. The 30-day demand also shows how state authorities can press technology companies for immediate changes without waiting for a new law or court judgment. For companies offering social features to children, whether through gaming, social media or other services, regulators may increasingly expect them to show not only that safeguards exist, but that they actually work in protecting younger users.
————————————————
Source link
