Privacy Policy

The Play store does still not require you in a blank statement to have a privacy policy in any case. You can therefore post an app to the store that is non-compliant with privacy laws.

From the Google Play Developer Distribution Agreement: "You agree that if you use the Store to distribute Products, you will protect the privacy and legal rights of users. If the users provide you with, or your Product accesses or uses, user names, passwords, or other login information or personal information, you must make the users aware that the information will be available to your Product, and you must provide legally adequate privacy notice and protection for those users. Further, your Product may only use that information for the limited purposes for which the user has given you permission to do so. If your Product stores personal or sensitive information provided by users, it must do so securely and only for as long as it is needed."

From the Privacy and Security Policy: If your app handles personal or sensitive user data (including personally identifiable information, financial and payment information, authentication information, phonebook or contact data, and sensitive device data) then your app must: Post a privacy policythat, together with any in-app disclosures, comprehensively discloses the collection, use and sharing of any user data your app handles, how it’s used, and the types of parties with whom it’s shared, and (...)

The California Attorney General is working on making all apps privacy regulations compliant and working on this with the big platform providers like Google Play. This situation could therefore change down the road to include a requirement for a privacy policy for any app regardless of their data collection.