The driver covertly filmed a passenger during a ride he was being paid for and disclosed the footage to a news organisation. This is extremely unethical IMO. Even if this is the CEO of Uber, it is entirely inappropriate, and he IMO is still entitled to an expectation of privacy equally as you or I would when we are paying for the exclusive private hire of a vehicle.
I get it, I really do, but it's not like he was complaining about a bad Uber driver. Disclosure in this way has real-world impacts up to and including harming people and we shouldn't ever consider it as something which is remotely acceptable. Is it acceptable to publicly disclose that an airport has a self-destruct switch which can be accessed near the NW mens bathroom? No. You contact someone who can fix the problem, then publicly disclose.
He mights have violated Uber's terms of service. But on the other hand: I see no reason why you shouldn't despise a company that has such terms of services - even more if it's willing to apply these terms. Especially if it's a company that tries to be popular in hacker circles.
Yes, it is fine. Uber is a private company and its data is private. It's an interesting thought experiment but I just can't get behind the idea that a private company has a moral or ethical responsibility to ensure that data they're providing to the public via their own app doesn't mislead law enforcement. If there was a court order for the data and it was inaccurate or false that's one thing but this is completely different.
But Uber is offering a service that by its very nature requires that you expose the service provider to information you may wish to keep private. How is this the service provider's fault? It's not like they're going out of their way to add tracking into something that doesn't require it.
Like this is a little nuts, if you buy one of those GPS trackers for your kids you don't get to act shocked when you find out the company has their location records. You get to be angry if they use those records for anything other than providing you service but of course they have them.
Uber's position is that its ride sharing, and that's why the drivers are employees. Arguing that they have a reasonable expectation of privacy now that it would benefit Travis is just arguing out of both sides of the mouth.
according to The Washington Post, the company was so lax about such sensitive data that it even allowed a job applicant to view people’s rides, including those of a family member of a prominent politician.
worries me a lot more than
a 2012 post on the company’s blog that boasted of how Uber had tracked the rides of users who went somewhere other than home on Friday or Saturday nights, and left from the same address the next morning.
Obviously Uber has this sort of data, and it can use it in various aggregated ways. What's more important than demonstrations of what information they could pull out of this is how serious they are about protecting it from access, either from people who want to buy that information or employees simply snooping around. I don't care if someone uses my data in an aggregate way to do something (e.g. facebook) as long as I am not personally identified.
Uber has an extremely adversarial relationship with the US gov, so while I doubt they're doing this out of love for their users, citizen privacy and uber's profits happen to have a shared enemy.
"Uber did not disclose the incident to the public, nor did it inform the Federal Trade Commission, which was investigating the company for its privacy and security practices"
Payoff no choice perhaps but the above move was a very bad esp when FTC is investigating your company.
reply