Blocks submissionApp Store

A Kids Category app has a parental gate, no third-party analytics or ads, and sends no identifying data to third parties

The question Only for an app in the Kids Category: are outbound links, purchases and distractions behind a parental gate? Do the bundled SDKs include analytics or advertising? Does any manifest declare device or personal data sent to a third party?

A person or a model answers it from the app's texts and screens; the answer is kept only while the facts it saw are unchanged.

Applies when audience:children

Checked from built, not yet uploaded, on a test track, submitted and in review, published

The rule, in our words

• App Review Guidelines: Kids Category apps may not include links out of the app, purchasing opportunities or other distractions unless they sit in a designated area behind a parental gate. Once customers expect the app to meet these requirements it must keep meeting them in later updates, even if the category is deselected. The app must comply with children's privacy laws and may not send personally identifiable information or device information to third parties. Third-party analytics and advertising should not be included; analytics may be permitted only if the service collects no IDFA, no identifiable child data, no location and no device data, and third-party contextual ads only if the provider has public Kids Category policies including human review of ad creatives.

Okkok never stores the stores' text. Each item above is our paraphrase, and the link is the page it rests on, verified unchanged by fingerprint on every run.

The other store

• Apple demands a parental gate before any link out or purchase and bars sending PII or device info to third parties; Google instead bans transmitting AAID/IMEI, bans requesting location permission in child-only apps, requires an age screen for mixed audiences, an online-safety reminder and adult controls for social features. Apple allows analytics only if it collects no IDFA, no identifiable child data, no location and no device data; Google allows only Families self-certified SDKs. partial
• Google's test is programme membership (self-certified SDK versions) and an age screen for mixed audiences; Apple's test is the ad provider's published kids policy and human creative review. partial
• Google permits any SDK that is self-certified; Apple's default is exclusion with narrow exceptions. partial
• Google requires an explicit declaration reviewed by Google (7 days or longer); Apple binds the developer by customer expectation, with no declaration step. partial

Check your app

pip install git+https://github.com/petresandu-cloud/okkok
okkok audit path/to/app

The report names this rule as apple.1.3.kids-category and says what to do, who does it, where, and how it knows.