Uber employees used “God mode” to spy on former

After the last update , the Uber mobile application began to track the user's coordinates not only when the application was started, but also after the trip ( Trip Related Location Data function ). The coordinates are tracked for another 5 minutes after getting out of a taxi, the application works in the background process.

Of course, this is done for the convenience of users, to improve the quality of service. Now Uber knows not only where you came from, but also where you headed after leaving the taxi.


Even without this new functionality, the Uber platform and similar services represent a powerful system of total surveillance of citizens, because it is tied to a bank card and accurately identifies each passenger.

As it became known, some Uber employees were constantly engaged in “hack work” - they monitored the trips of ordinary citizens, including former spouses, girls and boys' acquaintances. It is possible that orders for receiving such information were taken even from outside - from friends and acquaintances. In addition to the jealous, Uber employees tracked some celebrity taxi rides, including R & B singer Beyonce. Perhaps they did it not out of commercial gain, but out of mere curiosity. Why not if they have access to this information.

This practice inside Uber became known from Samuel Ward Spangenberg ’s written judicial statement , which he gave in October of this year, having signed the notification of responsibility for giving false testimony. Earlier, Spangenberg was in the state of Uber and was engaged in internal audits. Now he is suing a former employer.


“The lack of user data security has resulted in the company's employees being able to track high-ranking politicians, celebrities, and even personal acquaintances of employees, including former girls / boys and former spouses,” Samuel Shpangenberg said in a written statement.

Two years ago there were rumorsthat the leadership of Uber uses a certain "God mode" to track any passenger taxi. Since then, the company has consistently denied this information and urged users that it cares about them as much as possible and protects personal information. The company allegedly strengthened the protection, so that employees are not allowed to access the database, except in rare cases. Now, however, direct evidence has emerged that a kind of “regime of God” was available not only to management, but also to ordinary personnel. Journalists from the Independent Investigation Center Reveal testified from five former Uber security officers that the company did not stop this practice even after the scandal two years ago.

According to former Uber guards, thousands of ordinary Uber employees could get information about where and when specific passengers ordered a taxi and where they were going. Employees also have access to social security numbers and other personal information about Uber drivers.

Shpangenberg also said that the company deliberately destroyed documents that are required to be stored by law. This was done before state inspections of Uber’s overseas offices. On computers in offices, files were encrypted remotely before the checks. Shpangenberg claims to have warned management of the illegality of these actions, and after 11 months he was fired.

Uber company in the official statement for the courtdenied allegations of insufficient protection of user data and illegal practices in the workflow process. She stated that she fired several employees (less than 10 people) for illegal access to private information about passengers.

The latest update of the Uber application with the Trip Related Location Data Data function increases the convenience of passengers who have “nothing to hide”, but has caused concern to human rights defenders, especially as there have been claims to Uber before. The Electronic Frontier Foundation even sent a complaint to the Federal Trade Commission.

As practice shows, the centralized collection and storage of private information always creates grounds for abuse. Absolutely innocent people who allegedly “have nothing to hide” from the state can become victims. Remember how NSA staff looked at intimate photos of naked girls in randomly intercepted traffic? Now here it became aware of abuses by ordinary employees of Uber. If there is a central database with private information - the attackers will definitely find a way to get access to it.

They can do this with the help of social engineering - through bribing Uber employees, even through romance with them (famous hacker Kevin Mitnick even married an administrator from the phone company GTE, they say, to get access to the system, because before that, a thick and clumsy hacker didn't show interest in women). It is even easier for state intelligence agencies to gain access to the system - they can abuse power, creating the appearance of actions within the legal field.

So think again before you enable the feature of collecting geodata in a mobile phone.

Uber has over 40 million users in 60 countries , including Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Uber Taxi carries more than 8 million passengers daily.