Google Play Families · Families Policies, retrieved 2026-08-13
Children’s Privacy: COPPA, Google Play Families, Amazon Appstore Child-Directed Apps, Apple App Store Kids Category are one add-on at $39/mo, bought through COPPA, and together they count as one framework against your plan’s allowance.
Google Play’s Families Policies are what attaches once children are one of your declared target audiences — and Google reserves the right to reach its own conclusion about that audience from what the app actually looks like. Keel models them requirement by requirement: the Play Console declarations, the identifiers a child-only app may not transmit, the AD_ID permission on API level 33 and above, precise location, SDK approval for child-directed services, social-feature controls, and the ads rules — ads to children or to users of unknown age only from a Families Self-Certified Ads SDK, certified per version rather than per vendor, with no interest-based advertising and no remarketing. In-house cross-promotion and direct-sold inventory sit outside the self-certification requirement. Requirements Google places on ads SDK vendors bind those vendors, not you, and are cited but not scored.
Important: Google Play’s Families Policies are programme terms Google can revise without notice, and there is no version number to pin. Keel models the policy in force when it was retrieved on 2026-08-13; a replacement takes effect on 2026-08-26, expanding the restriction on anonymous chat apps targeting children. Check the live policy before relying on this for a submission, and treat this as a control-mapping aid rather than legal advice or a prediction of a Play Store review outcome.
How much of the standard Keel models
Models its declared scope in fullKeel authors every leaf requirement in the scope declared below — all 36 of them, with nothing inside that scope left out. A test fails the build if the authored count and the declared count ever diverge, so this framework cannot quietly lose requirements after the fact.
- Authored in Keel
- 36 requirements
- In Keel’s scored scope
- 36 leaf requirements
- Checked against
- "Google Play Families Policies", Play Console Help, https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/9893335 - together with its companion "Families Self-Certified Ads SDK Program", https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/9900633. Both retrieved 2026-08-13.
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Who needs Google Play Families?
- Studios whose Play Console target audience includes children, or a mix that includes them
- Teams choosing an ads SDK and needing the version they ship to be the certified one
- Apps with social or chat features aimed at, or reachable by, children
How Keel helps with Google Play Families
- The Families Policy requirements and the ads format rules as one scored control set with owners and evidence
- Crosswalks to COPPA and the other store programmes, so the shared work is done once
- A retrieval date in place of a version number Google does not publish, plus a monthly re-check of the source pages
Collect once, comply everywhere
Google Play Families shares canonical controls with Apple App Store Kids Category, COPPA and Amazon Appstore Child-Directed Apps and others in the catalog. Implement one of those controls and it counts toward every framework it satisfies, so adding Google Play Families rarely means starting from scratch.
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