Policy and Ethics Blog

I decided to research the app Tapingo and about what type of things lie within its terms and agreements. I recently downloaded this app to use on campus so that I can order food from on campus restaurants, and pick it up when I get there rather than waiting in line and ordering once I arrive. It was not very hard to find the information I was looking for. All I had to do was google, “Tapingo Terms of Service” and all of their information was laid out very clearly, which was very handy. I found that when you create an account with them, in order to use the service, you will be asked to provide certain personally identifiable information about yourself such as your name, user name, email address, telephone number, address of your residence, credit card and/or payment details and password and when you use the service you may provide them with further details such as purchases for products and services made by using the service. Your personal information will be stored in the service database and will be used in accordance with the privacy policy and the requirement of the applicable law.
If you register with them through Facebook, your Facebook profile, including your photo, list of friends, date of birth and other information provided through Facebook, may be disclosed to them, be shared with other users of the service, and stored in their database. You are not required to provide them with your personal information, however, if you decide not to provide information about yourself (such as, your telephone number and email address), or enable certain features (such as, your location identification), you might not be able to complete the applicable registration process, or use certain features of the service.
I thought it was interesting how your information from facebook, including all of your friends, are now at there disposal once you sign up. I do personally believe that this is a little bit of an invasion of privacy, however, we are the ones who agree to the terms and conditions, so we should expect such things. I do believe that this is a lot less invasive than many other apps however, so overall I think this app is not necessarily over invasive.