flutter_privacy_doctor
Audit Flutter dependencies for iOS PrivacyInfo.xcprivacy compliance and auto-generate App Store Privacy Labels + Google Play Data Safety forms.
The Problem
Every time you ship a Flutter app, you must:
- Verify that every native iOS SDK ships a
PrivacyInfo.xcprivacyfile — Apple will reject your app if a bundled SDK is missing one. - Manually fill out App Store Privacy Nutrition Labels — guessing which categories apply to each SDK you use.
- Manually fill out Google Play Data Safety forms — cross-referencing every permission with what it maps to in Play Console.
There is no built-in Flutter tool for any of this. The Flutter team acknowledged this gap publicly. Developers currently do it by hand — visiting every pub.dev page one by one.
flutter_privacy_doctor automates all three steps.
Features
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| 🔍 Manifest checker | Scans every native iOS/macOS dependency for PrivacyInfo.xcprivacy across 3 detection tiers |
| 🍎 App Store label draft | Pre-fills Apple Privacy Nutrition Label categories for 40+ known SDKs |
| 🤖 Play Store form draft | Pre-fills Google Play Data Safety categories for 40+ known SDKs |
| 📋 Android permissions audit | Maps AndroidManifest.xml permissions to exact Play Store Data Safety tick-boxes |
| 🔬 Required Reason API heuristic | Scans native .swift / .m / .h source for symbols that require a manifest entry |
| 📄 Markdown export | Saves the full draft report as a Markdown file for your release checklist |
| 🚦 CI gate | Exit code 1 when manifests are missing — block the pipeline before you ship |
| 🎯 JSON output | Machine-readable output for dashboards and custom tooling |
⚠️ This tool produces a best-effort draft — it is NOT a legal compliance determination. Always verify final answers against your app's actual runtime behavior before submitting to the App Store or Play Console.
Installation
dart pub global activate flutter_privacy_doctor
Run flutter pub get inside your Flutter project first so pubspec.lock and .dart_tool/package_config.json are up to date.
Quick Start
# cd into your Flutter project
cd my_flutter_app
# Run the full privacy audit
flutter_privacy_doctor
The tool reads your dependencies, runs all three checks, and prints a structured, color-coded action plan.
Usage
Sub-commands — run one check at a time
flutter_privacy_doctor manifests # Step 1: iOS manifest check only
flutter_privacy_doctor data-labels # Step 2: App Store & Play Store labels only
flutter_privacy_doctor android-permissions # Step 3: Android permissions cross-check only
All options
| Flag / Option | Description |
|---|---|
--export=<path>.md |
Save the full draft report to a Markdown file |
--json |
Machine-readable JSON output (for CI pipelines and dashboards) |
--fail-on-missing-manifest |
Exit with code 1 if any native plugin is missing a manifest |
--ignore=pkg1,pkg2 |
Skip specific packages by name |
-p <dir> / --project <dir> |
Flutter project root (default: current directory) |
-h / --help |
Show usage information |
Export Markdown report
flutter_privacy_doctor --export=docs/privacy_report.md
Saves a self-contained Markdown file you can commit alongside your release checklist.
CI/CD pipeline gate
Add to your GitHub Actions, Bitrise, or Codemagic pipeline:
- name: Privacy manifest gate
run: |
dart pub global activate flutter_privacy_doctor
flutter_privacy_doctor manifests --fail-on-missing-manifest
Exits with code 1 if any native iOS plugin is missing a PrivacyInfo.xcprivacy file, blocking the build before you submit.
JSON output for dashboards
flutter_privacy_doctor --json > privacy_audit.json
Sample Output
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🔍 flutter_privacy_doctor — Pre-Release Privacy Audit
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Scanning your dependencies for App Store & Play Store
privacy compliance issues...
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📋 Step 1 of 3 — iOS Privacy Manifest Check
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
✅ firebase_analytics 10.7.4 — Privacy manifest found. Nothing to do.
✅ shared_preferences 2.2.3 — Privacy manifest found.
⚠️ Heads up: This plugin uses sensitive iOS APIs.
Double-check its manifest covers all declared APIs.
❌ flutter_facebook_auth 6.0.0 — Privacy manifest MISSING.
🚨 Action required:
Option 1: Update to a newer version (check pub.dev).
Option 2: Contact the plugin author and ask them to add it.
Option 3: Add it manually to your app's own manifest.
👉 https://pub.dev/packages/flutter_facebook_auth
❓ my_custom_plugin 1.0.0 — Could not check automatically.
👉 Open this link and check if a privacy manifest exists:
https://pub.dev/packages/my_custom_plugin
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📊 iOS Manifest Results:
✅ 2 plugins — Good to go
❌ 1 plugins — Need a privacy manifest (action required)
❓ 1 plugins — Could not check automatically (verify manually)
💡 Tip: Fix the ❌ ones first — those can cause App Store rejection.
✅ Audit complete. Good luck with your release! 🚀
How It Works
Three-tier manifest detection
For each native iOS/macOS plugin, the tool checks in priority order:
Tier 1 — Local file scan
Inspects the package in ~/.pub-cache for any .xcprivacy file
Result: definitive ✅ (the file exists in your installed version)
Tier 2 — Known database
Checks bundled known_privacy_manifest_status.json (57 packages)
Result: ✅ or ❌ with the exact version when the manifest was added
Tier 3 — Unknown
Not in database, no local file found
Result: ❓ with a direct pub.dev link for manual review
Federated plugin support: Packages like url_launcher_ios and shared_preferences_foundation resolve correctly to their parent database entry — no false unknowns for federated plugins.
Android-only plugins excluded: Packages like google_sign_in_android and shared_preferences_android are automatically skipped — they have no iOS code and need no manifest.
Required Reason API heuristic
Scans native source (.swift, .m, .mm, .h) for symbols Apple classifies as Required Reason APIs:
| Symbol | API Category |
|---|---|
NSUserDefaults, UserDefaults |
User defaults storage |
NSFileCreationDate, NSFileModificationDate |
File timestamps |
NSFileSystemFreeSize, volumeAvailableCapacityForImportantUsage |
Disk space |
systemUptime, NSProcessInfoThermalState |
System boot time |
activeInputModes |
Active keyboard |
SDK data collection database
The bundled known_sdk_data_collection.json maps 40 popular SDKs to the exact category names used in both the App Store and Play Store forms — so you get precise tick-box instructions, not guesswork.
Bundled SDK Coverage
iOS Privacy Manifest Status
57 packages tracked, including:
- Full Firebase suite (core, analytics, crashlytics, messaging, auth, firestore, storage, remote config, database, performance, in-app messaging)
- Google packages (google_sign_in, google_maps_flutter, google_mobile_ads)
- Flutter team packages (shared_preferences, path_provider, url_launcher, webview_flutter, in_app_purchase, share_plus)
- Popular third-party (Sentry, Facebook Auth, flutter_stripe, RevenueCat, OneSignal, AppsFlyer, Adjust, Mixpanel, Amplitude)
Data Collection Labels (40 SDKs)
| SDK | Collects | Used for tracking |
|---|---|---|
| Firebase Analytics | Usage Data, Device ID | Yes |
| Firebase Crashlytics | Crash Data, Device ID | No |
| Firebase Messaging | Device ID | No |
| Firebase Auth | User ID, Email | No |
| Google Mobile Ads | Device ID, Advertising Data | Yes |
| Sentry | Crash Data, Device ID | No |
| Google Sign-In | Email, Name, User ID | No |
| Geolocator | Precise Location | Yes |
| Flutter Facebook Auth | User ID, Device ID, Email | Yes |
| AppsFlyer | Device ID, Usage Data | Yes |
| Adjust | Device ID, Usage Data | Yes |
| Branch.io | Device ID, Usage Data | Yes |
| RevenueCat | Purchase History, Device ID | No |
| Stripe | Financial Info, Email | No |
| Amplitude | Usage Data, Device ID | No |
| Mixpanel | Usage Data, Device ID | No |
| Intercom | Name, Email, Usage Data | No |
| OneSignal | Device ID | No |
| Braze | Name, Email, Device ID | No |
| Webview Flutter | Browsing History | No |
| … and 20 more |
Contributing
The long-term value of this tool is in keeping both databases current with each SDK's published privacy documentation. Contributions are welcome.
Adding a new SDK
lib/src/services/known_privacy_manifest_status.json — add an iOS manifest entry:
{
"package": "my_plugin",
"hasManifest": true,
"sinceVersion": "2.1.0",
"note": "Privacy manifest added in 2.1.0",
"source": "https://pub.dev/packages/my_plugin/changelog"
}
lib/src/services/known_sdk_data_collection.json — add a data collection entry:
{
"package": "my_plugin",
"requiresPrivacyManifest": true,
"citationUrl": "https://example.com/privacy",
"appStoreCategories": {
"collects": ["Device ID"],
"linked": ["Device ID"],
"tracking": ["Device ID"]
},
"googlePlayCategories": {
"collected": ["Device or other IDs"],
"shared": ["Device or other IDs"]
},
"notes": "Collects device ID for attribution."
}
Open a pull request with a source URL pointing to the SDK's own privacy documentation.
Disclaimer
This tool generates a DRAFT starting point to speed up your privacy review. It is NOT a legal compliance determination or a guarantee of App Store / Play Store approval.
Before submitting:
- Verify answers against your app's actual runtime behavior
- Check each SDK's current published privacy documentation
- Consult a qualified legal or privacy professional if needed
The authors of
flutter_privacy_doctoraccept no liability for submissions made solely on the basis of this tool's output.
Resources
- Apple: Privacy manifest files
- Apple: Describing use of required reason API
- Apple: App privacy details on the App Store
- Google Play: Data safety section
- Flutter issue #131940 — Flutter's acknowledgment of the privacy manifest gap
License
MIT — see LICENSE.
Libraries
- flutter_privacy_doctor
- Flutter Privacy Doctor — audit Flutter dependencies for iOS privacy manifest compliance and generate App Store Privacy Labels and Google Play Data Safety forms.