Donald Trump's App Wants YOU To Do This

Is there any less essential kind of app than those for presidential campaigns? Sure, maybe you'll get some interesting political blasts now and then, but by and large, if you're signed up with a campaign's app, you're going to get a whole lot of noise. For better or for worse, campaigns need attention, and new ways to generate it, to help reach as many people as they can. And let's just say that's clearly true of the Republican presidential nominee. Donald Trump's new app really wants your info, and it wouldn't mind nabbing some of your friends', too.

The Trump campaign app, called America First ― a phrase Trump is fond of, which also happens to have been the slogan of a mid-20th-Century antisemitic movement to keep the U.S. out of World War II ― asks for permission to view your contacts when you first sign in, and boy is it not kidding around. As Jane C. Timm noted for NBC News, the app's privacy policy grants the Trump campaign the theoretical authority to use your contacts' info, including names and emails, however it pleases. The policy states:

We use your information to provide and improve our services, award loyalty points to you, make special offers, customize services for you, better understand our users, or diagnose and fix problems.

Bustle has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment on why access to people's contact information is also required.

The privacy policy is something you'd do well to keep in mind if you're a Trump-loving voter who happens to be friends with a lot of progressive types. Suffice to say, this likely isn't the gift they're looking for.

Another one of the notable things about the app, as Derek Willis of ProPublica noted, is that it allows users to view the first and last names of others who've signed up for text message alerts. That's one way to get around the American institution of the secret ballot, huh? Also, there's a fun little quiz you can play!

In any case, you should be aware if there are any Trump supporters in your life who download this app, because if they do, your contact info might just end up in the campaign's clutches. That's not to say there's any guarantee that the campaign would try to sell you on voting Trump, to be clear ― it's merely the fact that it apparently could if it wanted.

In other words, there is no reference to anything that might seem like a breach of trust or privacy. To be clear, the app receiving your information as well as your friends' is a largely theoretical concern, though the underlying questions of privacy and access are relevant in countless areas of American life. It's probably worth remembering, though, that when you click that "America First" icon, the campaign reportedly has a lot of legal latitude to use your information as it will.