Boosting user privacy and business protection with updated Play policies

Posted by Bennet Manuel, Group Product Manager, App & Ecosystem TrustWe strive to make Google Play the safest and most trusted experience possible. Today, we’re announcing a new set of policy updates and an account transfer feature to boost user privacy and protect your business from fraud. By providing better features for users and easy-to-integrate tools for you, we’re making it simpler to build safer apps so you can focus on creating great experiences. We’re also expanding our features to help you manage new contact and location policy changes, so you have a smoother, more predictable app review experience. By October, Play policy insights in Android Studio can help you proactively identify if your app should use these new features and guide you on the exact steps to take. Additionally, new pre-review checks in the Play Console will be available starting October 27 to flag potential contacts or location permissions policy issues so you can fix them before you submit your app for review. Here is what is new and how you can prepare. Contact Picker: A privacy-friendly way to access contacts Android is introducing the Android Contact Picker as the new standard for accessing contact information (e.g., for invites, sharing, or one-time lookups). This picker lets users share only the specific contacts they want to, helping build trust and protect privacy. Alongside this tool, we are updating our policy to require that all applicable apps use the picker, or other privacy-focused alternatives like Sharesheet, as the primary way to access users’ contacts. READ_CONTACTS will be reserved for apps that can’t function without it. What you’ll need to do If your app asks for access to contacts for features like sharing or inviting, you should update your code to use the picker and...

Original source: https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2026/04/giving-users-clearer-choice-and-everyone-a-safer-more-trusted-app-ecosystem.html
Publisher: Android Developers Blog