Weekly New/Digital Media (27)

Uber employees 'spied on ex-partners, politicians and Beyoncé'

As well as a lack of oversight regarding customer data, Spangenberg alleges numerous other ethical breaches at Uber.

Summary:

Cab startup’s former forensic investigator Samuel Ward Spangenberg claims he was fired from the company after blowing whistle on lack of security. 
Uber employee's tended to abuse the view that uber had to spy on  “high-profile politicians, celebrities and even personal acquaintances of Uber employees, including ex-boyfriends/girlfriends, and ex-spouses”, the investigator said. 

Spangenberg is suing the company on "age discrimination and whistleblower retaliation" when he accused the company of their lack of security he was later fired 11 months later. 
This lack of overseeing customer data and ethical breaches due to vunrable managerial policies allowing data to be stored and making it seem as a “legitimate business purpose”.
The reason Spangenberg gives that this wasn't noticed by intelligence agencies was that "Uber would lock down the office and immediately cut all connectivity so that law enforcement could not access Uber’s information. I would then be tasked with purchasing all new equipment for the office within the day, which I did when Uber’s Montreal office was raided.”
Uber says "We have hundreds of security and privacy experts working around the clock to protect our data." Uber also confirmed that some employees – “fewer than 10” – had been fired for abusing the tool saying that they need it for various reasons such as refunding customers.
"The news comes just two weeks after Uber updated its app to increase the amount of location information collected about users."

My opinion:

This is a prime example of just how extremely our data as consumers could be used in ways we arent comfortable with. Its one thing to say we don't mind our google search engine data being used to recommend us pages but its another to allow firms to use your data to actively stalk people. It is a criminal act, so obviously we have something against it, it shouldn't be possible from a media basiss on this scale then.

Whats worse about this is the wide spread power uber is gaining consistently as it grows at a very rapid pace. It is unnerving to see the amount of power big institutions can have on a passive consumer who thinks that their service is only being enhanced so don't think much of the terms and conditions nor the implications of what could be the outcome.

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