Uber Security Updates; Riders' Personal Info Not Safe? Former Information Officer Speaks Out; Employees Use Info For Personal Gain?

By Marguerite Chang - 14 Dec '16 05:20AM

Who would have thought that Uber can use the riders' personal information for their personal gain? This is the allegation that a former Uber employee has lodged against the company. The allegation was made by Ward Spangenberg. According to his LinkedIn account, he was in charge of the Information Security Operations & Forensics while he was with Uber.

If Spangenberg is to be believed some unscrupulous Uber employees has taken advantage of the personal details of their users for their own gain. Part of his allegations is that some Uber employees used the personal trip information of the riders to stalk Exes. Big named stars like Beyoncé has not been spared as well if the accusations of Spangenberg is true.

Because of the security allegations, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick reminded their employees that "without the trust of their customers, they have no business". He gave the memo as a reminder about how they should conduct their business and make sure that there's unauthorized access to the personal information of their riding public.

Uber has acknowledged that there has been an incident where some of their employees took the personal information and broke internal policies. All the employees who were found to have violated the trust has been fired. This includes Uber employees who gained unauthorized access of the trips taken by celebrities.

For riders who do not know, once the Uber app is installed, it can track the location the whole time. There's a new collection of background location data that Uber is hoping to help provide faster loading when the user books a ride through Uber.

There are talks that the background location data gathering is unlawful and deceptive. In Uber's defense, they are saying that they do not do the data gathering unless given permission by the user. Uber has allegedly been fighting against their weak security system and hopefully, this will change now that this issue has been brought to light.