App developers have to follow these mandatory rules from Google to keep Android phones safe – Times of India

Internet search giant Google has announced mandatory steps for Android app developers to follow in order to “keep Google Play safe and secure.”
The company has revealed two new security measures that will be compulsory for developers, which are additional identification requirements and 2-step verification.
What are the additional identification requirements?
According to Google, account owners of developer accounts will also be asked to provide whether their account is personal or belongs to an organisation, a contact name, their physical address and verification of email address and phone number.
“Your contact information allows us to share important information and updates about your app. It also helps us make sure that every account is created by a real person with real contact details, which helps us keep the Play Store safe for all users,” said Google while explaining why it wants this information.
The company assured that this information is only for identity verification and will not be disclosed publicly.
How Google plans to impose these new rules?
The company will first make it an option for developer account owners to declare their account type and verify their contact details.
In August, it will make it mandatory for all new developer accounts to specify their account type and verify their contact information at sign-up. It will also make 2-step verification a requirement for the owners of new developer accounts.
Then, later this year it will make all existing developer account owners declare their account type, provide the required information, and verify their contact details. The exact date for this hasn’t been released yet.