The American transit giant said an investigation against its New York chief, about the alleged tracking, is currently ongoing. Uber also posted and reiterated their privacy policy recently to address the rising concern about consumers' data security and personal privacy.
Uber's action came after Buzzfeed News reporter said that the car service company New York executive tracked her Uber ride without her permission. Johana Bhuiyan, a news reporter for Buzzfeed, said the incident happened this month as she took a ride to Uber's New York headquarters.
Bhuiyan, who went to Uber's Long Island City office to interview Josh Mohrer, said the executive was waiting for her. The reporter claimed Mohrer said "There you are. I was tracking you." Uber's New York general manager even showed her his iPhone which was used to track her ride. The bad news here is Mohrer tracked Bhuiyan without asking for her consent.
Mohrer was able to track Nhuiyan through the company's "God View" tool. This Uber feature "shows the location of Uber vehicles and customers who have requested a car." The God View tool is reportedly accessible to the transit giant's corporate officers which include Mohrer.
On the other hand, the right to track an Uber ride is not an automatic privilege for the company's top employees. As Uber posted recently, travel tracking is allowed only for "legitimate purposes." This includes "supporting riders and drivers in order to solve problems brought to their attention by the Uber community."
Uber executives can also track a ride to facilitate payment for their drivers, to monitor potential fraudulent acts of the driver and the rider, and to review rider or driver's account in order to fix bugs or technical mishaps.
The car service company denounced Mohrer's illegal tracking and according to their rule, violation of rider's privacy "results in disciplinary action, including the possibility of termination and legal action." Aside from tracking Bhuiyan's ride, Mohrer is also being investigated for accessing the reporter's logs.
It can be recalled that this is not the first time that Uber has been plagued with negative issues. Peter Sims already wrote a blog last 2011 about an incident where someone informed him through text that his "movements were being tracked via God View on a large public screen" in an Uber launch party in Chicago.
