I don't use ads in my flutter app then why this message is showing in my play console?

Question

I am using Firebase and google analytics though.

The advertising ID declaration form is now available for you to complete.

We'll use this declaration to provide safeguards in Play Console. You will not be able to create releases targeting Android 13 until you complete the declaration.

Apps using advertising ID that target API level 33 (Android 13) or later must declare the normal permission com.google.android.gms.permission.AD_ID in their AndroidManifest.xml. This will prevent your advertising identifier from zeroing out. If you do not declare the permission in your manifest file, or if you use an SDK that omits the permission from their library manifest, this may impact your advertising and analytics use cases.

Answer 1

You need to check if your final merged manifest, AndroidManifest.xml, includes the permission com.google.android.gms.permission.AD_IDor not.

If it does, you need to answer Yes and answer the questions that are prompted; if it does not you should answer No.

You may not be including this permission explicitly in your AndroidManifest.xml, but it could still be present in your final merged manifest after the build is done, contributed by one of the dependencies you have on your project.

To verify this, you can use the Merged Manifest Viewer on Android Studio and look for com.google.android.gms.permission.AD_ID, or check this files on the build folder:

└── APP MODULE
├── intermediates
│   ├── merged_manifest
│      └── flavourBuild
│          └── out
│              └── AndroidManifest.xml
└── outputs
    └── logs
        └── manifest-merger-prod-release-report.txt

Search for com.google.android.gms.permission.AD_ID inside manifest-merger-FLAVOUR-BUILD-report.txt and you will get if it was included, and by what library.

Example

Search for com.google.android.gms.permission.AD_ID inside AndroidManifest.xml and you will get to find if it was included or not.

You can remove the permission by including a removal rule on you AndroidManifest, like explained here, but that can cause problems on the functionality of the dependencies that need it.