Google Play Families · Families Policies, re-verified 2026-08-26

Google Play’s Families Policies are what attaches once children are one of your declared target audiences — and Google reserves the right to reach its own conclusion about that audience from what the app actually looks like. Keel models them requirement by requirement: the Play Console declarations, the identifiers a child-only app may not transmit, the AD_ID permission on API level 33 and above, precise location, SDK approval for child-directed services, social-feature controls, and the ads rules — ads to children or to users of unknown age only from a Families Self-Certified Ads SDK, certified per version rather than per vendor, with no interest-based advertising and no remarketing. In-house cross-promotion and direct-sold inventory sit outside the self-certification requirement. Requirements Google places on ads SDK vendors bind those vendors, not you, and are cited but not scored.

36

requirements tracked

Premium

Access

Add-on from $39/mo

Children’s Privacy: COPPA, Google Play Families, Amazon Appstore Child-Directed Apps, Apple App Store Kids Category are one add-on at $39/mo, bought through COPPA, and together they count as one framework against your plan’s allowance.

Start free with Google Play Families See pricing

Scope

How much of the standard Keel models

Models its declared scope in full

Keel authors every leaf requirement in the scope declared below — all 36 of them, with nothing inside that scope left out. A test fails the build if the authored count and the declared count ever diverge, so this framework cannot quietly lose requirements after the fact.

Authored in Keel: 36 requirements
In Keel’s scored scope: 36 leaf requirements

Keel publishes this for every framework it ships, complete or not, so a readiness percentage can be read against a denominator you can see. Compare every framework

Who it is for

Who needs Google Play Families?

Studios whose Play Console target audience includes children, or a mix that includes them
Teams choosing an ads SDK and needing the version they ship to be the certified one
Apps with social or chat features aimed at, or reachable by, children

What Keel does

How Keel helps with Google Play Families

The Families Policy requirements and the ads format rules as one scored control set with owners and evidence
Crosswalks to COPPA and the other store programmes, so the shared work is done once
A retrieval date in place of a version number Google does not publish, plus a monthly re-check of the source pages

Collect once, comply everywhere

Google Play Families shares canonical controls with Apple App Store Kids Category, Amazon Appstore Child-Directed Apps and COPPA and others in the catalog. Implement one of those controls and it counts toward every framework it satisfies, so adding Google Play Families rarely means starting from scratch.

Shares canonical controls with

ISO/IEC 27001 no shared canonical controls
CIS Critical Security Controls no shared canonical controls
PCI DSS no shared canonical controls
SOC 2 no shared canonical controls
SOX (Sarbanes-Oxley) Section 404 no shared canonical controls
NIST Cybersecurity Framework no shared canonical controls
NIST SP 800-53 no shared canonical controls
NIST SP 800-171 no shared canonical controls
HIPAA no shared canonical controls
GDPR shares canonical controls
COPPA shares canonical controls
Amazon Appstore Child-Directed Apps shares canonical controls
Apple App Store Kids Category shares canonical controls
PIPEDA no shared canonical controls
ISO 9001 no shared canonical controls
AI Governance Essentials no shared canonical controls
ISO/IEC 42001 no shared canonical controls
NIST AI Risk Management Framework no shared canonical controls
EU AI Act no shared canonical controls
ESG Essentials no shared canonical controls
US Employment Law - Federal Baseline no shared canonical controls

A framework is lit when at least one canonical control satisfies both Google Play Families and that framework. Unlit means none of them do — an absence, not a judgment about that standard. 4 of 21 are lit here.

Other frameworks: ISO/IEC 27001 · CIS Critical Security Controls · PCI DSS · SOC 2 · SOX (Sarbanes-Oxley) Section 404 · NIST Cybersecurity Framework · All frameworks