Is my app or its dependencies violating the Android Advertising Id policy?

aloj picture aloj · Sep 18, 2018 · Viewed 43.7k times · Source

I've just received this message from Google Play but I'm not collecting the Advertising ID.

Reason for warning: Violation of Usage of Android Advertising ID policy and section 4.8 of the Developer Distribution Agreement

Google Play requires developers to provide a valid privacy policy when the app requests or handles sensitive user or device information. We’ve identified that your app collects and transmits the Android advertising ID, which is subject to a privacy policy requirement.

Is it possible any of my dependencies uses it? Here's the list of dependencies:

implementation "org.jetbrains.kotlin:kotlin-stdlib:$kotlin_version"
implementation "org.jetbrains.anko:anko-common:$anko_version"

implementation ("com.android.support:appcompat-v7:$android_support_version") {
    exclude group: 'com.android.support', module: 'animated-vector-drawable'
    exclude group: 'com.android.support', module: 'design'
}
implementation ("com.android.support:design:$android_support_version") {
    exclude group: 'com.android.support', module: 'animated-vector-drawable'
}
implementation ("com.android.support:cardview-v7:$android_support_version") {
    exclude group: 'com.android.support', module: 'animated-vector-drawable'
    exclude group: 'com.android.support', module: 'design'
}
implementation 'com.github.PhilJay:MPAndroidChart:v3.0.2'
implementation 'com.github.apl-devs:appintro:v4.2.3'
implementation('com.crashlytics.sdk.android:crashlytics:2.6.8@aar') {
    transitive = true
}
implementation 'com.firebase:firebase-jobdispatcher:0.7.0'
implementation ("com.google.firebase:firebase-firestore:$firestore_version") {
    exclude group: 'com.google.firebase', module: 'firebase-auth'
}
implementation ("com.google.firebase:firebase-auth:$firebase_version") {
    exclude group: 'com.google.firebase', module: 'firebase-firestore'
}
implementation ("com.google.firebase:firebase-storage:$firebase_version") {
    exclude group: 'com.google.firebase', module: 'firebase-firestore'
}
implementation ('com.google.android.gms:play-services-auth:16.0.0') {
    exclude group: 'com.google.firebase', module: 'firebase-firestore'
}
implementation 'com.android.support.constraint:constraint-layout:1.1.3'
implementation 'com.android.support:multidex:1.0.3'
implementation ("com.android.support:exifinterface:$android_support_version") {
    exclude group: 'com.android.support', module: 'animated-vector-drawable'
    exclude group: 'com.android.support', module: 'design'
}
implementation 'com.soundcloud.android:android-crop:1.0.1@aar'
implementation 'com.github.bumptech.glide:glide:4.7.1'

Answer

rickythefox picture rickythefox · Sep 18, 2018

Disable advertising id collection

According to the Firebase docs you can disable advertising id collection by setting:

<meta-data android:name="google_analytics_adid_collection_enabled" android:value="false" />

in your AndroidManifest.xml under the <Application> tag.

EDIT: It seems like people are having mixed success with this approach. Try adding configurations { all*.exclude group: 'com.google.firebase', module: 'firebase-core' all*.exclude group: 'com.google.firebase', module: 'firebase-iid' } to the Gradle app dependencies area as per comment below.