Google Play Store Data Safety Compliance

In case you missed it earlier this summer, Google recently added “Data safety compliance” to their Play Store application.

From Google:

By July 20, 2022, all developers must declare how they collect and handle user data for the apps they publish on Google Play, and provide details about how they protect this data through security practices like encryption. This includes data collected and handled through any third-party libraries or SDKs used in their apps. 

As an app developer, you must disclose what data you are collecting and for what purpose, AND you must report the data collection practices of any tools or SKDs you’re using. This just made app development a whole lot more complex. Additionally, the CCPA (California Consumer Protection Act) also governs how you need to hold that data and how your customers need to be allowed to control it.

Ugh, what is an ethical software developer to do?

The atPlatform has you covered. The atPlatform lets you easily develop apps that are end-to-end encrypted. Because your app’s customers hold the only keys to their data, you (and your atPlatform SDK) completely fall out of scope for data collection and don’t have to declare anything. That’s it!

There are other benefits to developing on the atPlatform that are worth mentioning as well, including:

• All apps are peer-to-peer
• End-to-end encryption is built-in
• It’s open-source (free!)
• There’s no infrastructure – we run the encrypted microservers for you, so there is no back-end design or cost involved in running your app
• Apps can be polymorphic (OK, what the heck does that mean? In a nutshell, different information can be shown to different people. Imagine building an Instagram-like app that reliably showed different pictures for family vs. friends vs. business followers, based on what the app customer designates.)

Can’t wait to get started? Check out the open-source repo here or docs.atsign.com.

Photo by Firmbee.com on Unsplash