How to Check and Limit What a Coloring App Shares on Android

A children’s app being labeled “kid-safe” by a platform doesn’t automatically mean the ad software running inside it behaves that way. A recent settlement makes that point concretely, and it’s worth using as a reason to actually check what a coloring app on your child’s Android tablet is sending, rather than assuming a “Designed for Families” badge covers it.

What the Settlement Actually Showed

A settlement resolved claims against Google over its “Designed for Families” program, which was meant for apps aimed at children, with behavioral ad tracking specifically disabled. According to the allegations, apps in the program had AdMob — Google’s mobile ad software — embedded in a way that still collected IP addresses, device identifiers, usage data, and a child’s location accurate to within about five meters, without verifiable parental consent. Google agreed to pay $8.25 million to resolve the case.

The lesson isn’t that every Android app is doing this. It’s that a program label describes an intent, not a guarantee for every individual app that carries it — the same gap we’ve written about regarding Apple’s Kids Category rules and why we check apps ourselves rather than trusting a badge alone.

Check the Data Safety Section Before You Install

Every app on Google Play has a Data safety section on its store listing, filled in by the developer, describing what data types the app collects or shares and why. Before installing a coloring app:

1. Open the app’s Google Play listing and scroll to Data safety.
2. Look specifically for Location and Device or other IDs — neither should be listed as collected or shared for a genuine coloring app.
3. If the section is vague, missing detail, or lists data types that don’t obviously relate to coloring, treat that as a reason to look elsewhere, the same way we’d flag an unclear App Privacy label on iOS in our guide to what data kids’ coloring apps collect.

Check and Reset the Advertising ID

Android assigns every device an advertising ID, used by ad networks (including AdMob) to link activity back to a device for targeting. You can delete it:

1. Open Settings on the Android device.
2. Go to Privacy (or Privacy > Ads on newer versions; Privacy > Advanced > Ads on some older ones).
3. Tap Delete advertising ID and confirm.

Since Android 12, deleting the advertising ID means apps and ad networks requesting it afterward get a string of zeros instead of a usable identifier, cutting off ad-targeting correlation at the device level. This doesn’t erase data an app already sent, and it doesn’t stop an app from separately collecting other identifiers, which is why the permission and Data Safety checks above still matter alongside it.

Review the App’s Permissions Directly

Beyond the Play Store listing, check what the installed app can actually access:

1. Open Settings → Apps, find the coloring app, and tap Permissions.
2. Location, contacts, microphone and camera should all be off for a typical coloring app, unless there’s a specific, obvious feature that needs one (a photo-import tool needing camera or gallery access, for instance).
3. If a permission is on and you can’t think of a reason the app needs it, turn it off and see if the app still works. If a core feature breaks, that’s useful information about what the app actually depends on.

Our broader permissions red-flag checklist covers the reasoning behind this in more depth, and applies the same way on Android as it does on iOS.

Use Family Link for a Managed Account

If your child uses a supervised Google account through Family Link, some of this is easier to oversee centrally rather than app by app. We cover Family Link’s screen time controls in our guide to setting time limits on a coloring app; the same app carries permission and installation oversight for a managed child account, which is worth setting up regardless of any one app’s specific behavior.

If You Want the Data Gone

If a coloring app has already collected more than you’re comfortable with, that’s a separate step from adjusting settings going forward. Our guide on how to delete your child’s data from a coloring app covers requesting deletion directly from the developer, and escalating to the FTC if a legitimate request goes nowhere.

Our Take

A “kid-safe” label on a program or category is a reasonable starting signal, not a substitute for checking an individual app yourself — the settlement above is a concrete example of the gap between the two. None of the steps here take more than a few minutes: check the Data safety section before installing, delete the advertising ID, review permissions, and set up Family Link if you haven’t. Do that once per device, and it covers every coloring app your child uses afterward, not just one.

Our rankings and reviews cover iPhone and iPad apps, but the same checks apply on Android. See how we review and our best ad-free coloring apps for kids for what we test.

Sources: Google Will Pay $8.25M to Settle Child Data-Tracking Allegations (Malwarebytes), Google Inks $8.25M Deal Over Kids’ App Data Privacy (Law360), How to Delete the Advertising ID on Android (gHacks), Provide Information for Google Play’s Data Safety Section (Google Play Console Help)