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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.
... you get no sympathy from me.
Pay for a proper taxi, you cheapskates.
And now they have the same technology that the phone companies and many other darker parts of the Internet have had for years (so sayeth Snowden). So it's interesting to see what comes of folks who are "unmonitored" and "unregulated" and what they do with the tech. hmm....
Select from tblFriends where interesting >= 4;
I found it!
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.
I think they accidentally something.
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.
Any uber "customer" should be nothing more than a random number generated by uber when you request their services.
What if my ex is Beyonce?
Blow up dolls with celebrities faces printed on them don't count.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
"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.
I worked at a credit bureau. As developers we had unlimited access to everyone's data and zero oversight on read access. We could even change people's files and unless we were really stupid no one would catch us. I don't know anyone who was even tempted to abuse the power. No one even looked at their own reports. Even the poor guy who was a victim of identity fraud went through the proper channels (and then updated them because they sucked).