My current app is a smoking cessation app and it is desgined to help people quit smoking for good. Currently users of the app are expected to set a quit date and then remain quit from cigarettes for 12 weeks. The app helps with this by using badges, notifications and even live chats to stop smoking professionals (depending on your area). The app "frequently" mentions smoking and tobacco, but it never promotes it. It does the opposite. By mentioning the harms of smoking and the benefits of stopping.
The app also mentions (and can provide, depending on your area, medical history and a professionals final opinion) about nicotine replacement therapy, which users who are quitting smoking may be interested in.
Currently the app is rated 18+ as I have to tick "frequent" mention of drugs/tobacco/alcohol in the age rating questionnaire. Though it does not mention recreational drugs or alcohol.
We will soon be adding a large update to the app to add vaping support. The app will change largely in the fact smoking content and vaping content will be siloed from each other. So a user can either be on a smoking support journey (and see stop smoking content), or a vape support journey (and only see vaping content).
We need the app to be 13+ on the store and we will enforce age restrictions using the declared age range API as part of the account creation process. If the user is aged 13 - 17, they will only see vape related content, if they are 18+ they can see vaping OR smoking.
How negotiable is the age rating certificate, can we change it to 13+ if we implement age restrictions in the app and protect stop smoking related content behind it?