TaipeiGo Privacy Policy

App: TaipeiGo (app.taipeigo)
Contact: cjrobb@gmail.com
Effective date: 2026-11-13

TaipeiGo shows live Taipei bus positions and arrival estimates. It works without an account: we never ask for your name, email, or phone number. This page states exactly what leaves your phone.

What is sent, and to whom

Data	Why	Where it goes
Precise & approximate location (while you use the app, and while trip tracking is running)	Finding buses near you, "get off" alerts, the moving arrow	TaipeiGo cache server `api.taipeigo.app` (nearby-ETA); Google Maps SDK / geocoding (place search and routing)
Text you type in the search bar (bus route numbers/names, e.g. "612")	Looking up a route	TaipeiGo cache server `api.taipeigo.app`
Place names you search	Geocoding the destination	Google (Maps Geocoding / Places API)
Trip tracking state (which route you're riding, alight stop)	The arrival alert	Your phone only (local storage)

Not collected: names, emails, phone numbers, contacts, photos, files, calendar, IMEI / advertising ID, crash logs, analytics identifiers.

Why location is required

TaipeiGo is useless without it: it answers "which bus is near me right now" and buzzes you before your stop. Location is used only while the app is open, and only while trip tracking is running (announced by an ongoing notification). The background location permission is for that trip-tracking period alone.

Your cache server (api.taipeigo.app)

It calls the official TDX open-data API on your behalf and caches results, so the government API isn't hammered per-phone. What it stores:

Route/schedule data fetched from TDX — public data, kept ≤ 6 hours.
Nearby-ETA results bucketed by ~200 m grid, kept ≤ 1 minute.
A query's coarse lat/lng is used as a cache key and expires with the entry. We keep no account table, no user profile, no location history.

Traffic logging is standard (HTTP request metadata for uptime debugging) and is purged on the hosting platform's retention.

Third parties

Google (Maps SDK, Geocoding / Directions / Places API): receives the location and queries described above under the Google Privacy Policy.
Cloudflare (tunnel / CDN) and the hosting provider: infrastructure operators of api.taipeigo.app.
TDX (Taipei Department of Transportation): public open-data source; your coordinates are forwarded in the ETA request, as the TDX API requires.
No advertising SDKs. No analytics SDKs. No payment SDKs.

Data retention, deletion, transfer

All request data is TTL-bounded (≤ 6 h). Nothing personal is kept longer, so deletion = it is already gone; uninstall clears the app's stored trip data on your phone. Need a specific query removed? Email cjrobb@gmail.com with an approximate time and I'll purge matching cache and entry logs. Data stays on servers in the Taipei region (hosting-dependent) and is encrypted in transit with HTTPS everywhere.

Minors

The app is a general transit tool, contains no user-generated content, and collects no personal profiles. It is suitable for all ages.

Changes

Material changes get a new effective date above and a note in the app's About sheet. Questions → cjrobb@gmail.com.