Google has made a small, but notable change to its app store. It will be extremely easy to spot government apps in the Google Play Store now, as they have the ‘Government’ badge attached to them.
Google Play Store is rolling out the ‘Government’ badge to belonging apps
Why is Google doing this? Well, we’re guessing for safety purposes, first and foremost. This way you’ll always know for sure what apps are official government ones, and which are not. Official ones will be far easier to spot in case you need to install them.
As you can see in the image below, that badge sits right next to the download numbers for a specific app. There’s a small office building included, and right next to it the ‘Government’ tag is included. It’s very easy to spot.
This is a global change, it’s not exclusive to the US
Also, this is not a US-only feature, which is great. Google seems to be making this change on a global scale, as the same change has been spotted in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, South Korea, and more.
9to5Google notes that Google has been testing this for a while on Android. Google has obviously been working with governments and app developers in order to make this change.
There are even some rules in place here. Official agencies need to use government emails when setting up their accounts. If it’s a high-security app in question, it needs to go through additional checks. By high-security, we mean apps for voting, for example.
Over 3,000 apps are getting this treatment during the initial rollout
In the US, apps like NASA, FEMA; and IRS2Go have that badge on them. They’re not the only ones, though, of course. Over 3,000 apps in general are getting this badge in the initial rollout, all around the world. Google did provide some additional information regarding this, click here if you’d like to know more.
