Gaming platforms wanting to operate in Australia — like Roblox, Fortnite, Minecraft and Steam — have been urged to ramp up their safety measures after an investigation revealed “significant gaps” in how they prevent harm.

Australia’s internet regulator eSafety found some apps had limited protections for children on group chat and messaging features, which could expose them to child sexual exploitation or violence material.

eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant also flagged concerns with weak age assurance, with several apps relying on a user self-declaring age without effective verification.

The findings from the transparency report into gaming platforms released on Friday came after Ms Inman Grant had warned them to “level up” earlier this year.

She said it showed there were “significant gaps” in how tech companies prevent harm on gaming platforms which eSafety research showed around nine in 10 Australian children aged eight to 17 played.

“We expect these services to lift their game to identify and combat serious harms such as child sexual exploitation, sexual extortion and material and activity which promotes, incites or instructs violence,” Ms Inman-Grant said.

Another key issue was how apps trained their models which detect inappropriate language in chat features.

Ms Inman Grant indicated Roblox and Valve — the provider of Steam and Steam Chat — had a stale approach by only using internal datasets for training and not regularly retraining the models.

“Unlike the other providers, Valve failed to use tools to proactively detect harms on Steam Chat, including Steam Community group chats, outside of a URL detection tool that ‘mainly blocked scams’,” she said.

“This left all chats on Steam Chat with limited protections from child sexual exploitation or violence material.”

While several apps openly worked with eSafety on the report, Valve did not take part in cross-industry information-sharing initiatives designed “to combat child sexual exploitation and abuse and violent extremism online”.

“Valve did not participate in any such initiatives, while Epic Games, the provider of Fortnite, did not share child sexual exploitation and abuse signals through the Technology Coalition’s Lantern program,” Ms Inman Grant revealed.

“Gaming service providers should be actively sharing intelligence about serious harms occurring across the gaming ecosystem.

“Particularly where safety risks can follow online gamers who use gaming-adjacent services to chat with friends, join communities, share content, or co-ordinate gameplay.”

Ms Inmant Grant named Minecraft and Fortnite as apps which primarily relied on self-declared age information.

She said while Valve’s Steam and Steam Chat also relied on self-declared ages during the reporting period they had since begun conducting age checks through credit cards.

“Predatory adults know this and often make first contact with children on games before grooming them for sexual exploitation or for radicalisation” Ms Inman Grant said.

“With so many Australian kids enjoying gaming, it is critical game service providers adopt meaningful and continuing Safety by Design measures to protect their young players.”