As a premium game, and without the need for analytics, I’ve tried to remove any traces of data collection in my game, but I just keep getting this email after every resubmit. I have…
removed all Unity services (Analytics, Cloud Diagnostics, etc).
removed the built-in analytics module package and all packages except Unity UI, 2D Sprites, and the VSCode plugin.
removed all plugins from my project except I2 Localisation and Rewired, which both have nothing to do with collecting personal information.
removed references to SystemInfo.deviceName and SystemInfo.deviceModel.
What else can I disable, or what am I missing? I’m totally in the dark here, and Google Play’s email is totally not helpful.
What assets are you using, 3rd party? ad stuff? social stuff? All these things, especially asset store things are likely to set google or apple off, so it’s worth listening them.
I listed them in my original post: just I2 Localisation and Rewired. AFAIK neither of these plugins need or connect to internet, and Charles Proxy confirmed this I guess.
Do you have a link to a privacy policy from inside the game? Do you use Google Play Games services? I think those transmit user data. We are not targeting younger audience, so it’s probably less strict for us, but just to be sure we wrote a privacy policy that says: we use Google Play Games Services, read their Privacy Policy here.
It has worked for us, but as I said, the requirements are probably less strict for our game.
I’m not (or rather ‘no longer’) using Google Play Games Services because of endless bugs and lack of support. I entered my privacy policy in the Google Play developer interface. I don’t have a link to my privacy policy in the game, but that shouldn’t be an issue as it’s not mentioned anywhere in the email from Google Play?
What I’m hoping to get at is that the email states that ‘they detected’ that I’m collecting information, which I’m not - or at least not knowlingly.
I mean they do mention “disclosure” as being their problem, so I made a wild guess that what they wanted is you disclosing the data that Google Play Games Services collect.
But if you’re not using that… I don’t know. But Charles Proxy seems to point out that it’s not a Unity issue either? (generally Unity analytics stuff point to Unity end-points).
Seems like Unity’s maybe still reading Advertising ID and Device ID, they just never transmit them if you have everything off, but Google just detects the accessing part and rejects your app.
I can confirm after reaching out to the Google Play team that they “detected that your app collects the following personal and sensitive information: Android Device ID and Advertising ID.” Unity calls these things internally. I’ve submitted a bug report and will wait for their answer.
Can you share the bugID? We’ve had similar issues with Apple (unconfirmed if related) but we haven’t (yet) heard of a similar policy from Google https://discussions.unity.com/t/779015
I set “Does your app collect any personal and sensitive information?” to “Yes” in Store presence > App content > Target audience and content > App details.
I adding the following to my privacy policy: “Unity, one of the game engines I use (for Hidden Folks, for instance), implements an interface on Android to request a device’s Android Device ID and the Advertising ID. I don’t use these interfaces in my games whatsoever, and have confirmed through tests that the data that could be requested from these interfaces never leaves your device.”
As you would agree, this is a silly workaround. I am not a laywer and I have no right to advice you to include a line like mine in your privacy policy. I also actually did those tests (as you can read in a post above) but if you’re using ads or analytics, this might also not be the case for you. Anyway, tread carefully.
Google Play accepted my app update after the above changes.