Minecraft

Username As of 2021 Minecraft requires that you have a Microsoft account to play it. As such the username requirements are those set by Microsoft. Some user names were block, those with well known profanity in them but we were able to create an account with some slang profanity in it such as "twatface"

Password The complexity requirements were not great with Microsoft. We used Pa55w0rd! which it complained had been used too many times before so we tried Pa55word1234 and surprisingly we were allowed to use that. There needs to be better password complexity on the accounts.

Multi Factor Authentication You can log into your Microsoft account and enable two step verification and a stronger password. In reality two step verification should be enabled by default.

Chat is available on Minecraft and when we tested it all our swear words were blocked however if you replace some characters such as “sh!t” or “”cr@p” or “w@nker” then these will appear in the chat window. We were also able to put URLs into the chat window which users could then either copy and paste or just type into a browser. This presents a danger of someone moving the conversation with your child off to a differernt platform.

There is a warning about online play

Minecraft does not need access to your devices camera however it can request access to your Microphone if you use it for online gaming.

Minecraft will not track your location and does require access to your location services.

Minecraft does not offer a live streaming service.

In the Apple app store Minecraft is set to 9+ and on Google play it is rated as 7+ both of which we believe are appropriate ratings.

There is no direct age verification done by the Minecraft app itself as it relies on the Microsoft account performing that task.

No recent security breaches reported and by recent we mean in the last 5 years.

Overall Minecraft is one of the safest that we have reviewed however there are two areas of concern, one area is the very weak password we could enter into Microsoft account that we could create. The other is the ability to easily bypass the chat filter to use bad language or URLs.