What Changes Are Required To Publish An Emergency App Having Sms Alerts In Google Play According To New Sms Permission Policy

I am working on an Emergency app that will send SMS alerts.When i try to publish it ,it shows a form and i need to select option from it. Acc to my app i have selected 'Physical Sa

Solution 1:

Don't expect any approval.

I am the author of Medical ID app, with more than 100k active users. The app includes an SMS alert as a core feature. I submitted the exception form multiple times, including a video, step-by-step explanations, etc. and the exception was rejected multiple times.

How can an emergency app with a clear and core SMS alert feature not meet their SAFETY_EMERGENCY_ALERT guidelines?

That's a great question they don't want to answer. What is really crazy is that real people review submitted forms and messages. However, and most probably for legal reasons, they answer with a very generic message so that nobody can take any actions and claim an arbitrary rejection.

What I noticed is that only highly popular apps have a chance to get the approval. For instance, Tasker got an approval even though their usage is completely generic!