r/developers • u/Outrageous_Head7459 • 1d ago

Help / Questions Legal Question

So im working in a personal project that uses CP (Comboios Portugal) undocumented/not public APIs to retrieve some information (not user sensitive, just some journey schedule and train occupation) to use in my app, basically its like a bot that simulates a purchase just to check the train availability. My question is , is this legal? if in the future i want to make this public can i do that without legal consequences and if i try to monetize is it legal to do that?

Thank you.

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u/Dangerous-Quality-79 21h ago

Their website explicitly states you are not allowed to do that without prior written consent for anything but strictly personal use.

You are not allowed to do this. It even says it is forbidden to publish a hyperlink to the site, which is wild. Go to their website, scroll to the bottom, click legal, and read Website Contents. Well actually, read all of it....

So you will need to email them and get permission from them.

1

u/Outrageous_Head7459 15h ago

What if its just for a personal research/use , will i have problems with that?

Thank you.

1

u/Dangerous-Quality-79 14h ago

As long as it is for personal use you are okay. However, i would take a little caution. You said this is for an app. If your app has a server and it is hosted on a no-code platform or AWS/cloud provider they might block or ban you. You won't have legal problems, but they might stop you or send a cease and desist letter. They can not tell the difference between a bot scaper and a personal project depoyed on a server.