Android Advertising ID Tracking

Overview

As part of the Google User Data policy update in April 2022, the advertising identifier may not be connected to persistent device identifiers (for example, SSAID, MAC address, IMEI, and so on) for any advertising purpose. The advertising identifier may only be connected to personally-identifiable information with the explicit consent from the user.

MoEngage complies with the guidelines mentioned in the Google Play Developer Program Policy and has built industry-standard APIs in the SDKs that enable you to opt-in for personalization using advertising ID only after explicit consent from the user.

The details about the data privacy requirements stated in Google Play Developer Program policies and recommendations on how to comply with them while using MoEngage are described in this article. Using these policies keeps your app in good standing on Google Play and keeps your users protected.

What Is the Policy?

The Android Advertising ID (AAID) or Google Advertising Identifier (GAID) is a unique, user-resettable ID for advertising, provided by Google Play services. As part of the Google Play services update in April 2022, the advertising identifier can be connected to personally-identifiable information or associated with any persistent device identifier only after taking explicit consent from the user.

info	Information The best practices for working with Android identifiers mention that you connect the advertising identifier to personally-identifiable information only after taking explicit consent from the user.

All Android apps listed on the Google Play store are affected. If you are generating persistent device identifiers and mapping them with AAID and not taking adequate consent from the user in accordance with the User Data policy depending on your data requirements and user flows, Google Play Console does not allow you to post new versions of your app from August 2022 end.

How Does It Affect Your App?

MoEngage SDK uses a Device ID (persistent device identifier) to uniquely identify the user to deliver personalized content and associates this to AAID if allowed by the app.

AAID is one of the device attributes used by MoEngage to improve:

Accurate identification of reachable devices for sending Push notifications. If the user opts out of AAID tracking, this may lead to an increased number of users reachable using Push notifications.
Tracking re-installs for users over time. If the user opts out of AAID tracking, this may lead to re-installs being tracked as new installs.

If AAID is passed to MoEngage SDK without proper consent, you may receive this warning from the Google Play team.

Email Message

Your app includes SDK com.moengage:moe-android-sdk or an SDK that one of your libraries depends on, which collects personal or sensitive data that includes but is not limited to Advertising ID identifiers that may not be linked to other personal and sensitive user data or resettable device identifiers as described in the User Device policy.

This is only a warning and has no impact on your app’s User experience or its Play Store listing till the end of August 2022. We've seen our customers getting different dates; please check the email you've received from Google for the exact date for your app. You can take this time to ensure compliance with the Google Play store guidelines by implementing the solutions recommended below.

Enable Advertising ID Tracking with MoEngage SDK

For MoEngage SDK versions 12.2.01 and later

With Android SDK version 12.2.01 released in April 2022, we have added the required APIs and support for enabling tracking of the specified identifiers only after the user’s consent. For more information, refer to Enabling Advertising ID tracking.

The Google Play team has reviewed and approved MoEngage SDK version 12.2.01.

For support on other frameworks apart from Android native, we would provide similar methods to enable tracking AAID with our new SDK versions on these frameworks planned to be released by 31st July 2022.

For MoEngage SDK versions 12.0.00 and earlier

MoEngage SDK versions 12.0.00 and lower track advertising identifiers by default and map them against the persistent identifiers. The mapping is according to the latest User Data Policy.

MoEngage strongly recommends that you update to the latest version for ease of opt-in and opt-out of tracking AAID.

What if I cannot Update the SDK to the Latest Version Right Now?

If you receive a warning and cannot immediately upgrade your MoEngage SDK and enable opt-in tracking properly, you can opt-out of tracking device identifiers on MoEngage SDK while initializing the SDK. To enable tracking again after taking the consent from the user, you need to re-initialize the SDK with the required configurations. For more information, refer to the developer documentation.

This is not a recommended method as this requires reinitializing MoEngage SDK and any previous initialization configurations is discarded.

In addition to this, if there are any other queries around Google Play user data policies, you can reach out to your MoEngage Customer Success Manager or raise a support ticket.

Frequently Asked Questions

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How to ask for consent from the user to track AAID?

As mentioned in the Best practices for working with Android identifiers, you must connect the advertising identifier to personally-identifiable information only after taking explicit consent from the user.

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Should I disable tracking AAID?

Tracking AAID helps MoEngage maintain accurate data with the use cases listed in this article. If you update the MoEngage SDK and implement Advertising ID tracking in the method recommended above, there is no need to disable it in all cases.

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Does this affect any of my data tracking or campaigns?

No impact on how campaigns such as Push notifications, and In-App messages are delivered to users. This may have an impact on some reported data such as Push reachability and tracking re-installs.