It’s great to see that there are now over 600 apps using TfL’s datasets to develop customer facing products, and these products have a huge role to play in helping people to move around the capital. The Digital Partnerships team at TfL continues to engage with developers through this blog, the recently launched Tech Forum, as well supporting the introduction of new data with recent examples including Cycle Superhighways, Cycle Quietways and busiest times at stations. We are also looking at ways to improve our data based on your feedback.
TfL’s registered trademarks and intellectual property
TfL’s open data policy helps to bring in more customer innovation created by you through unique product features and design. Building on the design point, unless otherwise agreed with TfL, a condition of our open data usage (we have very few conditions) is that your app shouldn’t be using TfL’s registered trademarks or other intellectual property.
For several reasons, your app shouldn’t be suggesting it’s produced or endorsed by TfL in any way. There are a few instances where app icons, landing pages and embedded symbols use TfL’s registered trademarks, for example the TfL roundel mark and the words ‘Oyster’ or ‘TfL’.
If your app is currently using any of TfL’s registered trademarks or other intellectual property, you should amend your app designs in line with TfL’s design guidelines. I hope you understand why we are making this request.
We have also noticed a few apps have been using screen scraping techniques to interrogate our Oyster Online and Contactless websites. As part of our ongoing efforts to keep customer data secure, we are implementing systems to reduce the threat of scraping to our websites which may cause these apps to stop working. This practice contravenes our open data policy and our terms and conditions in relation to customer accounts.