Al Franken has criticised Uber’s “lack of detail” to his questions about the ride-sharing service’s privacy policies.
The senator, who chairs the subcommittee on privacy, technology and the law, wrote to the company last month setting out 10 questions after a spate of incidents that he said indicated a “troubling disregard for customers’ privacy”.
The Democratic politician and former comedian asked what steps the Uber was taking to limit access to its “god view”, which lets employees track customers’ movements, and how it plans to improve internal privacy training to ensure policies are complied with.
Katherine Tassi, Uber’s managing counsel for privacy, has written a three-page letter to Franken in response to his queries in which she insisted that the company was committed to rider privacy and only collected the information needed to provide the service.
“It is neither unusual nor unexpected for a business to use the data of its customers as necessary to provide the service, to improve the service, and to run the business,” she wrote.
In response to the controversy over “god view”, Tassi wrote that the ability to use the feature was now restricted to employees in operations or other areas such as fraud prevention who needed a “real-time view of trips”.
‘Poor judgment’
Franken said he was pleased that Uber had responded to his questions but was concerned about the “surprising lack of detail”. “Quite frankly, they did not answer many of the questions I posed directly to them. Most importantly, it still remains unclear how Uber defines legitimate business purposes for accessing, retaining, and sharing customer data. I will continue pressing for answers to these questions.”
In the letter, Tassi also addressed the question of whether an employee had accessed the details of a BuzzFeed journalist. She wrote that Josh Mohrer had twice done so while communicating with her but had been open about his actions. “Although Mr Mohrer believed he had a legitimate purpose for doing so … Uber regarded his judgment in this instance to be poor and disciplined him accordingly,” she wrote.
Her letter also reiterated that Uber had hired Harriet Pearson, a data privacy expert, and her colleagues at law firm Hogan Lovells to carry out an in-depth review of its privacy policies and practices.
Uber has faced more negative publicity this week after introducing surge pricing in central Sydney in the wake of the lockdown prompted by Monday’s cafe siege. It quickly responded by offering free rides following a storm of criticism on social media.
Hundreds of taxi drivers blocked roads around Paris on Monday to protest against Uber, preventing access to key roads around Charles de Gaulle airport on Monday before inching towards the centre of the French capital.
