Progress on initiatives to keeping Google Play safe

Posted by Krish Vitaldevara Director, Product Management, Play and Android Trust & Safety

 

We want to keep you updated on the privacy and security initiatives we shared earlier this year, so you can plan ahead and use new tools to safely build your business. In the past few months, we launched:

• Google Play SDK Index to help you evaluate an SDK’s reliability and safety and make informed decisions about whether an SDK is right for your business and your users. See insights and usage data on over 100 of the most widely used commercial SDKs on Google Play.
• The Data safety section on Google Play, helping users better understand your apps’ data safety practices. Developers have told us that this new feature helps them explain privacy practices with their users and build trust. If you haven't yet, complete your Data safety form by July 20th.
• Enhancements to app integrity tools like Play App Signing to securely sign millions of apps on Google Play and help ensure that app updates can be trusted. Use Play App Signing to help protect your app signing key from loss or compromise with Google's secure key management service.
• Play Integrity API to help protect your app, your IP, and your users from piracy and malicious activity. Use this API to help detect fraudulent and risky interactions, such as traffic from modified or pirated app versions and rooted or compromised devices.
• And a new Target API Level policy to strengthen user security by protecting users from installing apps that may not have the expected privacy and security features.

What’s coming up

• As part of our work with the industry to build more private advertising solutions, we’ve launched initial developer previews for Privacy Sandbox on Android. We have more developer previews coming soon and a beta later this year.
• We continue to help developers update their apps before policy enforcement actions are taken. We’ve extended time to make changes, improved clarity of responses, and added new training materials. Recent tests of advanced Play Console warnings have also shown solid results. As we refine these features, we’ll expand them to more developers this year.

Thank you for your partnership in making Google Play a safe and trustworthy platform for everyone.