Just in time for the global digital ID push, Google will roll out its Play Age Signals API to all Google Play users worldwide by the end of 2026. This gives Android apps an easy way to ask Google how old its users are.
Google Play’s vice president of product management, Paul Feng, announced the expansion on July 29. Australia and Canada come first by mid-August, followed by “a full global rollout to all users later this year.” Apple launched its own version, the Declared Age Range API, worldwide in February.
An app calls the API while it’s running and Play answers with the band the user falls into, 0-12, 13-15, 16-17, or 18+ by default. Developers can redraw those bands in the Play Console. A developer who sets minimum ages of 13 and 17 gets users sorted into 0-12, 13-16, and 17 and over.
The feedback arrives as a lower and an upper bound, and the top band carries no upper bound, so an adult in that setup comes back as ageLower = 17, an age floor with no ceiling. A user who declined to share gets no band at all, only a NOT_SHARED status. Google’s rules bar any other use of the answer, “including, but not limited to, advertising, marketing, user profiling or analytics.”
To parents, Google says the API as “a privacy-preserving tool that puts parents in the driver’s seat.” A parent enters a child’s range once in the Family Link app, 16-17 rather than an exact birth date and every app that has built in the API can read it. Google says sharing is off until a parent opts in and that the setting can be changed or switched off at any time.
That default lasts until a law overrides it and Texas already has and you only have to look at the latest senate bill that we just covered to know exactly how this “privacy” preserving plan can end up being anything but. Adults can share their own range when an app asks. “Providing a safe online experience and protecting users from harm is a top priority at Google Play,” Feng wrote in his announcement.
Apps receive more than a band. Google’s developer pages say an app can receive “users’ age verification or supervision status, age ranges, and other applicable signals,” and the status field can also come back VERIFICATION_REQUIRED. A developer knows when a user declined to share and when an age was verified rather than declared, and Google leaves it to each app to decide what to accept. TechRadar, citing reports, says users who fail to complete verification can be blocked from downloading a wide range of apps, not just those with adult ratings.
The API went live in Brazil on March 17, the day the Digital ECA took effect. That law bans the “I am over 18” checkbox and threatens fines of up to 50 million reais, about US$9.44 million, or 10 percent of a company’s Brazilian revenue. Texas followed.
Play began returning ages and running an age verification flow for Texans who created accounts after May 28, once a federal appeals court stayed the December 2025 injunction that had blocked the state’s App Store Accountability Act.
Hellbound and Down 