Blocks submissionGoogle Play

An app whose audience includes children meets the Families requirements: certified ads, no personalised ads, age screen, disclosed data

The question The declared or apparent audience includes children. Is content appropriate? Do ads come only from self-certified SDKs, never personalised? Does a mixed-audience app have a neutral age screen? Is every collection of children's data, including by SDKs, disclosed and lawful? Is there a privacy policy?

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 on a test track, submitted and in review, published

The rule, in our words

• Google Play Families Policies: Declare the target audience accurately in Play Console; child-directed imagery or wording can change Google's assessment regardless of the declaration, and misrepresentation can lead to removal. If children are a target audience: content must be appropriate for them; the app may not be a mere webview or affiliate funnel; all Play Console answers (target audience, Data safety, IARC) must be accurate; collection of children's personal and sensitive data, including via SDKs, must be disclosed; child-only apps may not transmit persistent identifiers such as AAID or IMEI, may not request location permission or collect precise location, and may not use SDKs unapproved for child-directed services (mixed-audience apps may use them only behind a neutral age screen or implemented so that no data is collected from children); social features need an online-safety reminder, adult controls and adult action before children share personal data; the app and its SDKs must comply with COPPA, GDPR and other laws; ads to children must come only from Families self-certified SDKs, never be interest-based or remarketed, be child-appropriate, and follow the Families ad format rules; mixed-audience apps must implement age screening such as a neutral age screen; and the privacy policy must accurately describe data practices.
• Families Self-Certified Ads SDK Program: An app whose audience is only children may show ads only from self-certified SDK versions; a mixed-audience app must make sure children see ads only from those SDKs, for instance through a neutral age screen.

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
• none in principle; Google's rules are more specific (no persistent identifiers, no location permission, no interest-based or remarketed ads). Apple additionally limits birthdate and parental-contact collection to legal compliance and requires the app to remain useful regardless of age. same

Check your app

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

The report names this rule as google.families-requirements and says what to do, who does it, where, and how it knows.