Offences involving Roblox 236/2026
FOI Reference: 236/2026
Request:
Please could you provide me with the following information for the current full year of data you have available (e.g 2025) and the previous year, for example: 2024 - 2025.
1. How many instances of offences were reported to the police forced that included the name of the gaming platform “Roblox”.
a) A breakdown of the type of offence i.e. “Sexual Activity Involving A Child Under 13”, “Sexual Activity Involving A Child Under 16”, “Sexual grooming”, “Engage in sexual communication with a child”, “Social extortion or ‘sextortion’.”
2. Please can you also provide a redacted copy of the free text crime reports for these offences recorded by your force for the most recent year available - for example between January 2025 and January 2026.
3. Provide a specific age breakdown for each of these offences towards whom crime was purported
a) and where under-16s, are mentioned, please could you highlight specifically the ages of the teenagers impacted by subsequent offence. E.g 10 years of age, 11 years of ages, 12 years of age etc
Clarification: To confirm, in regarding to Q2, please could I request data for January 2025 to January 2026.
Response 1:
I can confirm that Dyfed-Powys Police does hold the information requested, as outlined below.
|
Offence Description |
2024 |
2025 |
Total |
|
Causing or inciting a child under 16 to engage in sexual activity - Male child -no penetration - Offender under 18 |
0 |
1 |
1 |
|
Common Assault And Battery |
2 |
1 |
3 |
|
Engage in sexual communication with a child |
0 |
1 |
1 |
|
Possession of an indecent or pseudo indecent photo of a child |
0 |
1 |
1 |
|
Sending photograph etc or film of genitals |
0 |
1 |
1 |
|
Sexual Assault Of A Female Child Under 13 |
0 |
1 |
1 |
|
Take/ make / distribute indecent photographs or pseudo- photographs, of children |
0 |
1 |
1 |
Response 2:
I can confirm that Dyfed-Powys Police does hold the information requested; however we are exempting part of the information as we believe that the following exemption is relevant:
Section 40(2) Personal Information
Section 40(2) is a class-based absolute exemption. This means that the legislators when writing the legislation considered that the release of such information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 would cause harm to the public authority or individual concerned. There is therefore no requirement to carry out a HARM Test in respect of such information. There is also no requirement to carry out a Public Interest Test.
Section 40(2) Personal Information:
Section 40(2) applies to third party personal data and is exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 if disclosure, in relation to data subject to law enforcement processing, would breach any of the data protection principles contained within Part 3 - Chapter 2 of the Data Protection Act 2018. Under Section 34 within Chapter 2 “The Controller in relation to personal data is responsible for and must be able to demonstrate, compliance with” Chapter 2. Such information would not be released under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 unless there is a strong public interest. One of the main differences between the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and the Data Protection Act 2018 is that any information released under FOI is released into the public domain, not just the individual requesting the information and disclosure under the Act must be made with that in mind. As such, any release that identifies an individual through releasing their personal data, even third party personal data is exempt.
Personal data is defined under Section 3 of the Data Protection Act 2018 as:
“(2) ‘Personal data’ means any information relating to an identified or identifiable living individual (subject to subsection (14)(c)).
(3) ‘Identifiable living individual’ means a living individual who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to—
(a) An identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data or an online identifier, or
(b) One or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of the individual.”
All members of the public have an intrinsic right to privacy and these rights are protected by virtue of the Human Rights Act, the Data Protection Act 2018 and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and a public authority must not interfere with that right. Any release of the information subject to the exemption is likely to compromise those rights.
Data Protection Act 2018
Part 3 – Law Enforcement – Chapter 2 Principles Section 35
The first data protection principle:
“(1) The first data protection principle is that the processing of personal data for any of the law enforcement purposes must be lawful and fair.”
General Data Protection Regulation
Article 5 of the GDPR – ‘Principles relating to processing of personal data’ provides:
“1. ‘Personal data’ shall be
(a) Processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner in relation to the data subject (‘lawfulness, fairness and transparency);
(b) Collected for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes and not further processed in a manner that is incompatible with those purposes; further processing for archiving purposes in the public interest…
2. The controller shall be responsible for, and be able to demonstrate compliance with, paragraph 1 (‘accountability’).”
Dyfed-Powys Police would not want to disclose any information that could potentially identify an individual. In this particular case, to release the victims details, especially taking into consideration the low number and description of the crimes, could lead to the identification of the injured party involved, and to release such information would be a direct breach of Data Protection legislation. Therefore as a consequence I am satisfied that Section 40(2) Personal Information exemption is applicable to the release of the information.
The Section 40 exemption is a class-based exemption. This means that the legislators when writing the legislation considered that the release of such information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 would cause harm to the public authority or individual concerned. There is therefore no requirement to carry out a HARM Test in respect of such information.
The Section 40 exemption is in part qualified and in part absolute, in the present case it would be absolute as to release the information would breach Data Protection legislation and therefore there is no requirement to carry out a public interest test.
All redacted information in the following list is due to Section 40 exemption.
| Referral from National Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC). The user of Roblox account associated with screen name XXXXXXXX, and display name XXXXXXXX has engaged in sexual communication with someone believed to be a child on the internet. One of the chats took place on XX/XX/2024. The user has indicated they are under the age of 18. The user logged into the account on XX/XX/2024 at 16:56:40 UTC using IP address XXXXXXXXXX. IP address XXXXXXXXXXX resolves to BT and locates to XXXXXXXX- Dyfed Powys Police. Warrant completed by POLIT and it was confirmed at address that XXXXXXX XXXXXXXX was in possession of IIOC. |
| Concerns regarding the welfare of XXXXXXX at our school following a concern XXXX raised with his TA this morning. The TA wrote on My Concern: During an ELSA session with miss XXXXXXX said during feelings check in that XXXXXXX was sad because "Mami hit me". XXXXXXX speech was unclear but XXXXXXX talked about going on Roblox and finding an iPad and playing when XXXXXXX wasn't meant to. "Mami hit me with a stick" XXXXXXX pointed at XXXX neck. XXXXXXX said it still hurt a bit. XXXXXXX didn't want to show XXXXXXX neck, miss XXXXXXX was unable to see if there was a mark or not. XXXXXXX (Headteacher) asked the class teacher to see if XXXXXXX could see a mark, but XXXXXXX said that there wasn’t a mark and XXXXXXX did not share anything further with XXXXXX. Class teacher has shared that XXXXXXX has an excellent attendance record of 100% and arrives at school each day clean and well-presented. XXXXXXX brings spare clothes in XXXXXXX school bag daily and is always punctual in the mornings, with prompt collection in the afternoons. XXXXXXX parents are supportive and attend meetings when required. XXXXXXX is a happy and lively member of the school community who enjoys coming to school. XXXXXX plays well with XXXXXXX friends but also values time playing independently. XXXXXXX experiences some behavioural challenges at school. XXXXXXX can become frustrated when given instructions by others or when something is taken from XXXXXXX, sometimes reacting physically in moments of anger, which has occasionally resulted in incidents with other children being hurt. XXXXXXX also has a tendency to take items from the class home and also bring items from home to school. To support XXXXXXX learning and wellbeing, XXXXXXX receives ELSA (Emotional Literacy Support), Phonics, and Numeracy interventions. |
| The user of the Roblox account associated to username XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX has made disclosure of sexual contact offence by XXXXXXX father when XXXX was 8 years old during a conversation with another Roblox user on the XX/XX/2025. The IP address used to log in was XXXXXXXXXXX on the XX/XX/2025 at 12:20:20UTC this was registered to Vodafone and resolvable to the XXXXXXX area. |
| IP has been engaging with a person on Roblox and part of the contact has been of a sexual nature. |
| The user of Roblox account associated to username XXX, screen name XXX and user ID XXX has engaged in sexualised chat with suspect XXX via Roblox on XXX /2025. No upload IP data provided. However, IP address XXX was used to login to the child victim's account on XXX /2025. |
| IP reporting that DP has posted an indecent photo of a child in an online Roblox group chat which shows the child's penis. |
| IP has received indecent images in a Roblox friend group |
|
Reported Dates |
|
05/02/2025 |
|
04/02/2025 |
|
31/03/2025 |
|
09/07/2025 |
|
04/11/2025 |
|
03/11/2025 |
|
03/11/2025 |
Response 3:
I can confirm that Dyfed-Powys Police does hold the information requested, as outlined below.
|
Victims Age |
|
11 x 2 |
|
7 |
|
14 |
|
9 |
|
12 |
|
9 |
It should also be noted that Police forces in the United Kingdom are routinely required to provide crime statistics to government bodies and the recording criteria is set nationally. However, the systems used for recording these figures are not generic, nor are the procedures used locally in capturing the crime data. It should be noted that for these reasons this force's response to your questions should not be used for comparison purposes with any other response you may receive.
(This is a response under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and disclosed on 10/3/2026)
|
Os oes angen y wybodaeth yma arnoch yn Gymraeg, cysylltwch â: If you require this information in Welsh, please contact: |