Action requested: Declare your Ad ID permission

Question

Today i have got this email:

Last July, we announced Advertising policy changes to help bolster security and privacy. We added new restrictions on identifiers used by apps that target children. When users choose to delete their advertising ID in order to opt out of personalization advertising, developers will receive a string of zeros instead of the identifier if they attempt to access the identifier. This behavior will extend to phones, tablets, and Android TV starting April 1, 2022. We also announced that you need to declare an AD_ID permission when you update your app targeting API level to 31 (Android 12). Today, we are sharing that we will give developers more time to ease the transition. We will require this permission declaration when your apps are able to target Android 13 instead of starting with Android 12.

Action Items If you use an advertising ID, you must declare the AD_ID Permission when your app targets Android 13 or above. Apps that don’t declare the permission will get a string of zeros. Note: You’ll be able to target Android 13 later this year. If your app uses an SDK that has declared the Ad ID permission, it will acquire the permission declaration through manifest merge. If your app’s target audience includes children, you must not transmit Android Advertising ID (AAID) from children or users of unknown age.

My app is not using the Advertising ID. Should i declare the AD_ID Permission in Manifest or not?

Answer 1

If your app uses the Google Mobile Ads SDK(Admob) version 20.4.0 or higher, you can skip setting up the permission manually since the SDK automatically declares it

More informations here:

https://developers.google.com/admob/android/quick-start

Answer 2

Google describe here how to solve

https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/6048248?hl=en

Add in manifest

<uses-permission android:name="com.google.android.gms.permission.AD_ID"/>

Answer 3

I also received today's mail from the PlayStore team to all developers. Asking to declare AD_ID permission. Since we developed and released our application using Flutter with android targeting to API level 31. I'm using the advertising_identifier: ^0.1.1 plugin to get the advertising client ID. I haven't declared AD_ID permission in my manifest file.

Additionally, apps updating their target API level to 31 (Android 12) and using advertise identifier / advertise id client info fetch will need to declare a Google Play services normal permission in the manifest file as follows:

<uses-permission android:name="com.google.android.gms.permission.AD_ID"/>

Refered,

https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/6048248?hl=en

Answer 4

Don't worry. All developer who uses Admob for advertisement received this warning. Just make sure you are using Latest Google Mobile Ads SDK(Admob) OR AdMob SDK version higher or equal to 20.4.0 in your build.gradle file. In that case SDK automatically manage it.

Otherwise for older sdk below 20.4.0, we need to manually mention below line in our AndroidManifest.xml

<uses-permission android:name="com.google.android.gms.permission.AD_ID"/>

Answer 5

when you set targetSdkVersion 33 you must need to add the below line in the manifest file

<uses-permission android:name="com.google.android.gms.permission.AD_ID" tools:node="remove"/>

if you are not set this, show a warning on the play console when your is in production.

Answer 6

Case 1: The app doesn't contain any Ads:

You can simply remove/ignore it by adding tools:node="remove" in the AndroidManifest.xml file.

<uses-permission android:name="com.google.android.gms.permission.AD_ID" tools:node="remove"/>

Make sure you have xmlns:tools at the top of AndroidManifest.xml file :

<manifest xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools" ... />

Even if another third-party library asks for this specific permission, the build will be forced not to merge it in your final Manifest file. You can get more info from this SO answer.

---

Case 2: The app contains Ads:

Add the following to AndroidManifest.xml before </manifest>:

<uses-permission android:name="com.google.android.gms.permission.AD_ID"/>

You can get more information from here.

Answer 7

Case 1: Your App has Ads

Add the following to AndroidManifest.xml before </manifest>:

<uses-permission android:name="com.google.android.gms.permission.AD_ID"/>

Case 2: Your App Doesn't have Ads

At the top of your AndroidManifest.xml make sure you have xmlns:tools on the <manifest ...>. (kudos to this answer) e.g.

<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
    package="com.mycompany.myapp">

Then, add the following at the bottom of the page, before </manifest> tag:

    <uses-permission android:name="com.google.android.gms.permission.AD_ID" tools:node="remove"/>

Source:

• Google's Doc: https://developers.google.com/android/reference/com/google/android/gms/ads/identifier/AdvertisingIdClient.Info#public-methods

Answer 8

If your app doesn't contain ads, make sure you complete the survey on App content page (Policy > App content) in Play Console.

Just select the option: No, my app does not contain ads.

If you don't do that, you won't be able to upload new releases of your app to Google Play.

Answer 9

There are two different forms:

1. Ads
2. Advertising ID

Initially, I got stuck because I did not notice the other. So your app can be in any combination, for example, no ads, but yes, advertising ID.

In this documentation it is explained that Google services can include the advertising ID for other reasons that are not ads: Analytics.

Google Play Services version 4.0 introduced new APIs and an ID for use by advertising and analytics providers. Terms for the use of this ID are below.

And in this other documentation, in the examples section is very clear that ads are understood as what is commonly understood as ads: banners, pop-ups, a tile in the middle of a list, etc.

Analyzing the merged manifest we can see that the library play-services-measurement-api is adding the permission and is related to Analytics. The library manifest looks like this:

    <uses-permission android:name="com.google.android.gms.permission.AD_ID" />

    <application>
        <service
            android:name="com.google.firebase.components.ComponentDiscoveryService"
            android:exported="false" >
            <meta-data
                android:name="com.google.firebase.components:com.google.firebase.analytics.connector.internal.AnalyticsConnectorRegistrar"
                android:value="com.google.firebase.components.ComponentRegistrar" />
        </service>
    </application>

Please notice that library is registering analytics.connector.internal.AnalyticsConnectorRegistrar.

In this case the Ads form must be mark with no but the Adverising ID form must be mark with yes and then the Analytics option.

I have seen people recommending force the manifest to not merge the permission.AD_ID but that would break the Analytics.

Answer 10

In my case, I used Firebase Analytics only for crash reports etc.

You can set your app to use advertising ID.

And use Analytics only.

Answer 11

In case this is caused by for example firebase analytics which uses Advertising ID do not use <uses-permission android:name="com.google.android.gms.permission.AD_ID" tools:node="remove"/> as shown in many other answers because analytics may not work correctly. Rather update declaration in Play Store Console that your app uses Advertising ID and select Analytics as reason. This will not add "App contains add" sentence for your app in Play Store.

Answer 12

First of all,
com.google.android.gms.permission.AD_ID can be added by other third party SDK like

• Play Services-ads
• firebase-analytics etc
  

So, if you haven't added permission.AD_ID manually, make sure it is not added by any other SDK by checking merged manifest file.

merged-manifest path:
project > app > build > intermediate > merged_manifest > release > AndroidManifest.xml

Now go to your play console > app content > Adverstising ID and

• Select NO if your merged manifest doesn't contain AD_ID, else
• Select YES and complete next option.