Google now insisting on privacy policies

We use that latest RAB to make “normal reading apps” about anything. We do not target children but in Google speak “our Google Play presence might appeal to children anyway”.

Also it would be great, if we could target kids of school age and have them read certain stories (together with their parents).

So in short: We need the tools to include proper Google-sufficient privacy policies
a) inside the app, where it needs to be easily accessible (make it a direct menu entry next to “about” please)
b) as a link to a stable server (we have some servers, but not in a league, where the availability is sufficient to serve as a link-target for legal declarations).

So it would be great is somebody qualified within SIL would take time to write a template specifically for users of RAB: I believe with our options our RAB-output does NOT COLLECT ANY USER DATA AT ALL, but since I am just using a builder-tool, I cannot be 100% sure. I am sure that we never RECEIVE any user data from our self-generated apps, nor from Google Play Console. So if all that could be expressed in nice legal speak, that would be really really helpful.

Also I am looking for help and ideas where to host/aim the Google-requested link for our to-be-written privacy policies (per app and per our dev-account in general). Could the RAB-department possibly create/make-available or show good examples of such please.

I am on holiday - and some dire messages from Google popped up on my phone today about having missed deadlines in September about our reading apps on Play. I just make some emergency declarations concerning our target audiences, but will look at your input after our holiday and will try to get engaged, depending on my after-holiday “pile on my desk”…

Thank you.

I also am finding myself searching for a RAB google privacy policy. Here is what I have found: I discovered an App privacy generator here but felt it was way overkill for RAB apps. However I found this link very helpful. As it lays out what a minimum policy should be and where to host. Basically the policy just needs to answer three questions:
What information do you collect?
How do you use the information?
What information do you share?
So for my RAB app, could my privacy policy could be something real simple like
“The app This little Black Duck by blackbetty does not collect, use or share information on app users?” Would that be true? I suppose if you have enabled e.g Firebase Analytics, you may want to adjust the statement to reflect the information from here or would that be necessary?

I can answer where to host the privacy policy. Google suggests creating a google site (free) or a public google document.

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I have a reading practice app that “could appeal to children” that got removed from Google Play Store for not having a privacy policy (it had been uploaded before all of this). I added the policy and re-submitted, but it is still being rejected for seemingly the same reason. Anyone else having trouble with this?

I had a challenge about one reading app and children, and I had to re-answer one Google interview about the contents. Google Play Console then auto-generated a new “rating” and since this one does not have any content about alcohol or other “problem subjects”. But in our case we were never blocked, we got lucky and reacted within the given deadline.

Time has moved on, so no ideas for you in 2023. Maybe you could share how you finally solved this in 2022.

Note to self in late 2023: No help ever came from the makers of the XYZ App Builders, so I wrote my own declarations and uploaded to one of our own servers.

I was lucky, that from day one I had opted out of all the data-collection and user-research tools which are being offered for the various App Builders. I - as a user - would not like to be “analysed” so as a developer I want to respect my own users and not check on them*. That has saved me a lot of work with Google, since where we do not collect any personal data, we have the best possible data protection.

*When creating apps for a rather small people group, where I might personally know all five speakers who happen to live in country XYZ, even the anonymous statistics from Google Play Console are telling me a lot. I might be able to conlude: “My friend AAA in XYZ has done a great job and must have shown or shared the latest RRR app with all four other speakers in his country.”