It turned out there were 2 issues causing this same end result. 1 was front end (dev), 1 seems to be an Adobe back end issue.
1 - Front end
Developer forgot to put the lifecycle start code into their app...
@Override
public void onResume() {
super.onResume();
MobileCore.setApplication(getApplication());
MobileCore.lifecycleStart(null);
}
@Override
public void onPause() {
super.onPause();
MobileCore.lifecyclePause();
}
When lifecycle start was included the device was registered correctly.
2 - Back end issue Privacy
Both developers of different Android apps discovered that if we configure Launch to default to privacy status UNKNOWN, then within the app when consent is given change it to OPT_IN, the devices get registered incorrectly.
If we default the privacy status to OPT_IN they get registered correctly.
I will need to raise this with Adobe support.