App rejected by Google Play because "Data Safety Section: Location Data Type - Approximate Location" about apps-android-commons

[sivaraam]

Ok, Nicolas. I've mentioned that the location data is collected permanently and submitted both the update and the new data saftey form for review.

Let's see how it goes.

The update went through this time. The v5.0.1 (#5528) has been published to testing now 🙂

[nicolas-raoul]

I think we collect location for Nearby, Explore>Map, location edition in the upload wizard and media details, and in the camera-based upload in certain conditions. I might be missing some.

As seen in the screenshot below, the app currently declares precise location as "Data collected" and "Data shared".

Maybe we don't explain sufficiently to the user before asking for permissions, or something like that? @sivaraam

[sivaraam]

Their explicit mention of "Approximate location" was peculiar. So I checked the data safety form and it indeed had a "Approximate location" field that we hadn't filled. So, I went ahead and filled the same.

I used the opportunity to make some more tweaks to the Data Safety form. Since we no longer share the location to Mapbox for analytics and also only share the location to Wikimedia Maps to obtain the tiles, I removed the "Analytics" category from Location and also mentioned that the location is not shared with third-parties.

I've republished the changes for review. Let's see how it goes

[sivaraam]

It just occurred to me that I had missed the location we gather via the image metadata and removed the changes sent to review for now. I had mentioned we only use the location ephemerally to process a request considering the "Nearby" scenario.

Does the location gathered via the metadata count as permanent storage of user location? What do you think? 🤔

[nicolas-raoul]

Does the location gathered via the metadata count as permanent storage of user location?

I would say yes.

[sivaraam]

Ok, Nicolas. I've mentioned that the location data is collected permanently and submitted both the update and the new data saftey form for review.

Let's see how it goes.

PS: I noticed this interesting tool which claims that it helps with generating the data safety form for the app. Need to check if it could helps us in some way in the future 🙂

[nicolas-raoul]

Fantastic!!!

Please do not hesitate to update https://github.com/commons-app/commons-app-documentation/blob/master/android/Project-maintenance.md with your tips and any setting export available. :-)

[sivaraam]

Fantastic!!!

Please do not hesitate to update https://github.com/commons-app/commons-app-documentation/blob/master/android/Project-maintenance.md with your tips

Sure. I do have a few updates to do there which can be seen in a draft PR found below.

commons-app/commons-app-documentation#52

Will complete the changes while promoting the app to production and mark the PR as ready. 🙂

... and any setting export available. :-)

Do you suggest to export the answers to the data safty form and capture those in the document too?

[sivaraam]

Closing this as I think we're done with this :-)