COPPA and Apps Aimed at Kids: What Data Safety Requires

If your app is directed at children under 13 (or the equivalent age threshold in your target regions), you're subject to significantly stricter rules — including Google Play's Families Policy, which restricts ad personalization, limits SDK usage to those certified for child-directed treatment, and prohibits several data collection categories outright.

The trap: an app not explicitly "for kids" but with broad appeal or child-friendly design can still get classified under the Families Policy by Google's review, regardless of your intended audience.

The fix

Fix: set your target audience declaration deliberately in Play Console, and if there's any ambiguity, err toward the stricter classification rather than hoping for the lenient one.

The same check runs automatically when you upload your bundle to the AAB analyzer — permissions, SDK fingerprints, and version info in one pass, free.

Keep going

Data Safety generator →

Turns these answers into a Play-ready CSV.

Data Safety guide →

The full method behind the checks.

Short, specific submission fixes.

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