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Uber Employees Used the Platform To Stalk Celebrities and Their Exes, Says Former Employee (businessinsider.com)
Uber employees are able to view customer trip information, and many of them are using it to spy on ex-girlfriends and celebrities like Beyonce, according to a former employee. From a report on BusinessInsider: A new piece out from Reveal's Will Evans details Uber's history with security and privacy. The story cites the experience of Ward Spangenberg, Uber's former forensic investigator who was fired from the company last February. Spangenberg is suing Uber for, among other things, wrongful termination, defamation, and age discrimination. In a stunning October court declaration, Spangenberg alleges that Uber employees freely accessed trip information about celebrities and politicians and helped each other spy on ex-boyfriends and ex-girlfriends by tracking where and when they travelled. Spangenberg, who worked at Uber for 11 months, said the company's lack of security violated consumer privacy and data protection regulations.
Just occasionally send the info to your buddy the paparazzo for a small payout.
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
Immoral people who are given any type of power over others usually will and do misuse that power. Film at eleven.
If you're rich and you use a taxi, you're not really rich.
That's what you're surprised about?
My surprise moment was already "Beyonce is considered a celebrity?"
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Well, they call them limos, but they're still rented.
Besides, even the rich like to yap at parties about having participated in certain trends and fashions; what better than to tell your zillionaire friends how you "got in touch with the common folk" by taking an Uber?
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
"Immoral people who are given any type of power over others usually will and do misuse that power."
Yes, but "normal", healthy, psychologically stable people who are put in positions of power over others will also abuse that power. Look up "Stanford Prison Experiment".
"Power Corrupts" isn't just an adage, it's a real psychological phenomenon. For some reason, power is a corrupting influence on the human psychology. That's what makes government so fundamentally dangerous and so naturally inclined toward corruption.
The normals will do whatever their peers/leadership are doing. If they have immoral peers and leadership, they will act immorally. If they have moral peers and leadership, they will act morally.
Tools can be made to limit access and log it but not eliminate it.
The question is, is there a culture present with the data that treats it as normal or one that thinks privacy violations are vile. Guess we know which culture Uber has now. In that type of culture, the behavior flourishes, until it is caught out by some big mistake or whistle blower. In the other type of culture, the people who think it is okay stick out like a sore thumb and are quickly dealt with.
Silence is a state of mime.
Newsflash: Uber's success - and the reason they're popular - has less to do with their cost and more to do with the fact that cabs in the U.S. tend to fucking suck.