Privacy Policy? Really?

First let’s get something out of the way. Do not rely on this post as being legal advice. if you want a custom Privacy Policy that will cover any legal issues that are of concern to you, then you should talk to a lawyer.

OK, enough legal smeagol! You finished building your app and you are ready to publish from the Google Play Console.

That’s when you find out that Google will not let you off the hook without a Privacy Policy.

Relax! Don’t panic, there are a lot of ready-made privacy policies that you can find on the web. You might want to read them first though, in case they don’t fit with what your app is all about.

I like to use the App Privacy Policy Generator. 
Its basically a site where you enter some info on your app and what kind of third-party services your app connects with, a few clicks, and voilà! you have yourself a Privacy Policy.


Now if you’re like me and you don’t have a server running 24/7 in your basement, you are probably wondering where to host this privacy policy. 

Well you have a few options. I like the GitHub pages solution, but you can also host it on google drive by putting it in a publicly shared folder and grabbing the shared link that google drive provides for users to reach the hosted html page. You could also look at Google Sites Service which is a free web page creation tool with no domain name needed. It is very easy to use and has good features, like responsive designs, drag and drop editing and integration with google maps and google drive.

However, if you decide to use the GitHub solution, you will have to create a GitHub account. once that is done just follow the steps below to host your privacy policy.

1- Login it to your GitHub account and click on the + sign on the top left corner to create a new repository.

2- Type your repository name and click the green “Create repository” button.

3- Click on the “Branch: master” button, type “gh-pages” in the text field, and click in Create branch: gh-pages.

4- Now click on create new file and drag and drop the privacy policy you created earlier. Make sure the extension of the privacy policy you created is .html

5- Finally go on the settings tab. 

6- Scroll down and click on the link you see in the “GitHub Pages” section to test whether your privacy policy works or not.

7- Once you have determined that the link works, copy and paste it in the Google Play console, at the store listing, privacy policy section for your app. That's it.