Google Play Data Safety, Content Rating and Ads Declarations for an AdMob Game

Short answer: a game that uses the Google Mobile Ads SDK declares that it contains ads, that it uses the advertising ID, and in Data safety that it collects and shares approximate location (from the IP address), app interactions, diagnostics and device or other IDs, for advertising, analytics and fraud prevention, encrypted in transit. That is what Google states for its own SDK. Add whatever else your game collects, answer the IARC content rating questionnaire, choose a target audience and add a privacy policy URL.

All of these live in Play Console under Policy and programs → App content. Our declarations tool produces a Data safety CSV that Play Console can import, plus suggested answers for every other form. Read on for the reasoning, so you can change the answers when your game differs.

What Play Console asks for

• Privacy policy URL (required for every app).
• App access: instructions for reviewers if anything is behind a login.
• Ads: whether the app contains ads.
• Advertising ID: whether and why the app uses it.
• Content rating: the IARC questionnaire.
• Target audience and content: the age groups you target.
• Data safety: what data is collected and shared, and why.
• Plus short declarations (government, financial, health, news apps) that a casual game answers "no" to.

What the Google Mobile Ads SDK collects

You do not have to guess. Google publishes a Data safety disclosure for the Google Mobile Ads SDK (developers.google.com/admob/android/privacy/play-data-disclosure). For current SDK versions it lists, as collected and shared for advertising, analytics and fraud prevention:

• Location → Approximate location: the IP address, used to estimate location.
• App activity → App interactions: app launches, taps and video views.
• App info and performance → Diagnostics.
• Device or other IDs: the advertising ID, app set ID and, where applicable, IDs for signed-in accounts.

Google also states that this data is encrypted in transit. Check the page against the SDK version in your build before you submit; Google updates it when the SDK changes. Any other SDK in the game (analytics, crash reporting, other ad networks through mediation) has its own disclosure that you add on top.

Import the Data safety form from CSV

The Data safety page in Play Console has Export to CSV and Import from CSV. Import overwrites whatever is already in the form, so it is a clean way to start. Every app published on production, closed or open testing must complete the form; apps on internal testing only are exempt. After importing, click through each step, read the answers, and save.

Our declarations tool builds that CSV for an AdMob game, with options for optional analytics and for data deletion requests. If Play Console reports an unknown question, Google has changed the form; export your own CSV from Play Console to see the new shape.

Ads and the advertising ID

• Contains ads: yes. Google counts ads served by third-party SDKs and house ads. A "More games" menu that only cross-promotes your own apps may be declared as no ads, but a game with AdMob answers yes.
• Advertising ID: yes. Apps targeting Android 13 or higher must declare the com.google.android.gms.permission.AD_ID permission to read it, and the Google Mobile Ads SDK merges that permission into your manifest for you.
• Purposes: advertising or marketing, analytics, and fraud prevention, security and compliance, matching the SDK disclosure above.

Content rating for a casual game

Google states that all apps must have a content rating from the IARC to be on Google Play, and apps without one are removed. The rating comes from a questionnaire in Play Console; there is no CSV for it. For a typical puzzle, sorting or hypercasual game the honest answers are mostly "no":

• Violence: no, unless characters fight or weapons are used on characters.
• Sexual content, crude humour, swearing, drugs, alcohol, tobacco: no.
• Gambling or simulated gambling: no, unless there are slot machines, roulette or betting, even with fake coins.
• User interaction or user-generated content: no, unless players can type free text or chat.
• Digital purchases: yes only if the game sells in-app purchases.

Target audience, children and the Families policy

You must declare the age groups your app targets. If you include any group under 13, Google Play’s Families policy applies: among other things, you must use only Families self-certified ads SDK versions and apps for a mixed audience that treat adults differently must use a neutral age screen to do so. Most hypercasual games target 13 and over, but answer honestly: if bright cartoon art could appeal to children, Google may ask you to follow parts of the Families policy anyway.

If you do target children, mark ad requests as child-directed, serve non-personalised ads, and do not use the advertising ID for children (apps aimed only at children must not send it at all). Read the Families policy itself before you publish; it is stricter than this summary.

The privacy policy link

Google requires a privacy policy link in the designated Play Console field and inside the app. It must be on an active, publicly accessible, non-geofenced URL, not a PDF and not an editable document. It also has to agree with your Data safety answers: if the form says you share device IDs for advertising, the policy must say so too. Our guide to a privacy policy for a mobile game with ads covers what to include, and the privacy policy tool generates and hosts one for free.

App access and the rest

If the whole game works without a login, choose "All functionality is available without special access". If anything is behind an account, give reviewers credentials and instructions. The government, financial, health and news declarations are "no" for a casual game.

These forms are one stage of the whole release; the full order is in how to publish a Unity game on Google Play.