CODEWITHSUNDEEP
androidfluttergoogle-playprivacy-policy
Royston46
Royston46

Reputation: 578

Play Store: Publishing status: Removed - APK REQUIRES VALID PRIVACY POLICY​

I have been sent the below notification via email 3 times now. Each time I have appealed it with the privacy team. The 3rd is being processed now, the other 2 were overturned within 4 days.

The email reads:

APK REQUIRES VALID PRIVACY POLICY​

Your app is uploading users Primary Account information to https://api-recipe.stashcook.com without posting a privacy policy in both the designated field in the Play Developer Console and from within the Play distributed app itself.

Note:

The app is made with Flutter. The buttons are created with the following code. I even added the semanticsLabel in case it is a bot that is removing the app, I thought it might help it "find" the buttons.


  Widget _buildBody() {
    return ListView(
      children: [
        _buildTile("Terms", onPressed: () {
          _urlLauncher.tryLaunch("https://stashcook.com/terms-and-conditions");
        }),
        _buildTile("Privacy Policy", onPressed: () {
          _urlLauncher.tryLaunch("https://stashcook.com/privacy-policy");
        }),
      ]);
  }

  Widget _buildTile(
    String title, {
    void Function() onPressed,
    Widget trailing,
  }) {
    return ListTile(
       title: Text(
         title,
         semanticsLabel: "$title button",
         style: TextStyle(fontWeight: FontWeight.bold, color: Colors.black),
       ),
       onTap: onPressed,
       trailing: trailing ??
           Icon(
             StashcookIcons.arrow_right,
             color: ThemeDataDefaults.darkBlue,
             size: 18,
           ),      
    );
  }

I have contacted the Play Store support team and they gave me an automated response, even after pleading with the support engineer for some information specific to my issue.

Hi Roy,

Thanks again for contacting Google Play team.

As much as I'd like to help, I’m not able to provide any more detail or a better answer to your question. In our previous email, I made sure to include all the information available to me.

You should be able to find more about your issue here: User Data and Mobile Unwanted Software policy pages.

Thanks for your understanding.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Upvotes: 11

Views: 13875

Answers (4)

Royston46
Royston46

Reputation: 578

After much pleaing to the Play Store support staff they finally pointed me in the right direction.

The issue wasn't that I didn't add a privacy policy in the correct locations, like the email from the Play Store suggested. It was that the privacy policy did not include explicit details informing the user that their device ID would be sent to my apps external API.

It appeared that, depending on the person reviewing the app, some reviewers would deem the privacy policy acceptable and other would not. Hence the back and forth. It seems the Play Store reviewers don't have any better error message to send developers when this issue arises.

Once I editing the privacy policy wording the app was reinstated on the Play Store and I haven't had an issue since.

Upvotes: 9

Amey Shirke
Amey Shirke

Reputation: 714

Not sure about flutter code but if you are using Firebase Auth, you can set the policies hosted on your website while creating the Auth instance.

This may have a better probability of the bot registering/scanning it.

You may find something equivalent in flutter for this sample android code:

AuthUI.getInstance()
        .createSignInIntentBuilder()
        .setAvailableProviders(providers)
        .setTosAndPrivacyPolicyUrls(
                "https://example.com/terms.html",
                "https://example.com/privacy.html")
        .build();

Upvotes: 0

Andrey Shapovalov
Andrey Shapovalov

Reputation: 277

Have you solved the problem? I have the same thing on one project. And I saw that in it some API calls are written to logcat. For example:

print (apiRequest);

I think this is what the Bot sees and removes the application.

Upvotes: -2

jeugene
jeugene

Reputation: 231

For certain user permissions, you need to upload a privacy policy, during app submission.

You can generate a policy using this link

https://app-privacy-policy-generator.firebaseapp.com/

After that create a simple site in Google Sites, and upload the policy within it. Copy the link address

On play store, in your app submission page, paste the link in Add A Privacy Policy option.

This could resolve the issue

Upvotes: 0

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