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Uber Now Tracks Passengers’ Locations Even After They’re Dropped Off

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Re: Uber Now Tracks Passengers’ Locations Even After They’re Dropped Off

#101

Post by visakanv »

baddox wrote: post #90
duaneb wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't need the information. They care because they are data driven and not personally culpable for their invasions of privacy. Why not collect everything you can without getting more permissions?

You seem to be implying that they are violating privacy just for the heck of it. That's ignoring the very obvious value (even to customers) of this specific type of data. As the other commenter mentioned, knowing where humans choose to be dropped off when heading to a specific location is of obvious value.

> You seem to be implying that they are violating privacy just for the heck of it.

Why not both? Why not collect all the information you possibly can, whether or not you immediately see obvious value to it, and then find ways to justify it later?

Re: Uber Now Tracks Passengers’ Locations Even After They’re Dropped Off

#102

Post by __jal »

uuilly wrote: post #15

Yeah, after being a "dozen rides a week" Uber user for the last year, I switched to Lyft. There is just no reason for this.

It doesn't change anything, but as the Uber engineer above lists, they have rational reasons for wanting it.

I just don't have any rational reason to want to give it to them, so I'll be disabling GPS entirely. But I've mostly stopped using them anyway - the scummy corporate behavior bugged me, but not enough to boycott. And then a driver nearly physically attacked me over, as best I can tell, mishearing something (although I'm not really sure). Those combined, along with a general dislike of the gig economy and I've already mostly ditched them - Uber feels somewhere between sketchy and icky to me. Used them once in the last ~6 months, when the Lyft app forgot my password and it was late.

Re: Uber Now Tracks Passengers’ Locations Even After They’re Dropped Off

#103

Post by bastawhiz »

bigiain wrote: post #73
synicalx wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I accept it because I don't really care if Uber knows where I am for a couple of minutes after they drop me off. Not everyone's cup of tea, but if you don't like it there's nothing stopping you from uninstalling the app.

Any you trust them (as a company) that they'll "only track you for 5 minutes after using the app", and you trust each of their staff members will have controlled/secured/audited access to only the 5 minutes location data after a trip, and you trust them to never deploy a production bug in their tracking code, and you trust every law enforcement or business partner request for that data including gag-order-backed-NSLs…

It's worth noting that if Uber accidentally started collecting location data from every rider's phone in perpetuity while they're not on-trip, it would be a very big problem for Uber. That's an absolutely ridiculous amount of data and would easily overwhelm the service. You wouldn't have to worry about NSLs because the data centers would be a fiery mess of steel and silicon. Even if they weren't, the data is overwhelmingly not useful for anyone at Uber (how many hours of "sleeping at home" worth of data points could ever be used?), and it would be destroyed because it's a giant waste of resources.

Uber is big, but not that big. You're already volunteering your location for the service (by being in a car tracked by Uber), this simply adds a small margin of data at the end of the trip.

Re: Uber Now Tracks Passengers’ Locations Even After They’re Dropped Off

#104

Post by shostack »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #32

In iOS, most apps request your location "Always", "While Using the App" or "Never". I had Uber set to the second; that option is now gone. It's always or never. Set it to never; this makes their app less usable, but that just nudges me to use Lyft, Juno, et cetera .

Can you set it to never, set it to always while using it, and set it to never when the ride ends?

Re: Uber Now Tracks Passengers’ Locations Even After They’re Dropped Off

#105

Post by shostack »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #32

In iOS, most apps request your location "Always", "While Using the App" or "Never". I had Uber set to the second; that option is now gone. It's always or never. Set it to never; this makes their app less usable, but that just nudges me to use Lyft, Juno, et cetera .

Can you set it to never, set it to always while using it, and set it to never when the ride ends?

Re: Uber Now Tracks Passengers’ Locations Even After They’re Dropped Off

#106

Post by shostack »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #32

In iOS, most apps request your location "Always", "While Using the App" or "Never". I had Uber set to the second; that option is now gone. It's always or never. Set it to never; this makes their app less usable, but that just nudges me to use Lyft, Juno, et cetera .

Can you set it to never, set it to always while using it, and set it to never when the ride ends?

Re: Uber Now Tracks Passengers’ Locations Even After They’re Dropped Off

#107

Post by necessity »

uabstraction wrote: post #83
necessity wrote: post #11

PrivacyGuard and Orwall prevent applications from using the internet/GPS without your express authorization. Anyway if you want absolute privacy toss your smartphone in the trash can, cancel your contract with your ISP, commit social suicide and go live off the grid.

Imagine if the Founding Fathers decided to forgo western civilization and go live in the woods as nomadic hunter gatherers instead of standing up to British oppression... Or if all the blacks just listened to Marcus Garvey and went back to Africa instead of participating in the American Civil Rights Movement. This is basically what you're suggesting. We have the technological means to ensure reasonable levels of priv…

... except Uber, Google, carriers, etc, are not oppressive.

Re: Uber Now Tracks Passengers’ Locations Even After They’re Dropped Off

#108

Post by ultrasaurus »

bastawhiz wrote: post #91
yladiz wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but why does Uber need/care about that information? If I ask to be dropped off at X and walk a couple blocks to Y, Uber shouldn't care. I can understand the argument that maybe going to certain buildings you have to be dropped off at a specific spot, but that seems like a minor gain for something that's more than just a minor intrusion.

(Uber engineer here) The data is used for (or can be used for) a number of practical and important purposes. These are some examples of what we do as well as what we could do with such data: - Fighting fraud - Improving "suggested pickup" locations - Improvements around POOL (we'd rather suggest a location that's easy to pick up from than one that's unsafe) - Figuring out what side of the street you end up on (we can…

It's a tough one -- I want to be able to opt out, but I still want Uber to drop me off at the front desk not the mailing address... based on knowing that 90% of other users had to walk the same 100 meters immediately.

Re: Uber Now Tracks Passengers’ Locations Even After They’re Dropped Off

#109

Post by greggman »

cmontella wrote: post #86
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how the Overton Window shifts. Trouble is, now I have to walk 5 minutes in the opposite direction before turning around and meeting my dealer / going to the brothel / whatever you don't want posted on paste bin. Another issue arises when a "bug" records your location for 5 hours instead of 5 minutes.

Yup, which is a strong possibility for Uber. I had an Uber charge me for a ride that continued for 12 hours after I had been dropped off. Uber had no problem billing me >$300 for this. If they don't have safeguards in place for questionable fare collection, they surely don't have safeguards in place for questionable data collection.

I'm not saying that didn't happen but it makes zero sense. The user chooses a destination and the app tracks where the driver is so it's reasonable to assume if the driver got within 100 meters of the destination the ride ended within 1-2 minutes of that time. They should just pad by 1-2 minutes and then assume the ride ended.

In fact they could make it the exception not to end it by sending a "How was the ride" message to both driver and customer and they both have to pick "Not finished" for it to continue.

Re: Uber Now Tracks Passengers’ Locations Even After They’re Dropped Off

#110

Post by ajdlinux »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #37
melvinmt wrote: post #8

> Uber collects your location data from the time of trip request through five minutes after ends trip ends, including when the app is in the background. We do this to improve pickups, drop-offs, customer service, and to enhance safety. Meh, sounds reasonable as long as they don't collect data outside this window (although they should not make it all-or-nothing, a third option of "While in use" would be better).

This is how the Overton Window shifts. Trouble is, now I have to walk 5 minutes in the opposite direction before turning around and meeting my dealer / going to the brothel / whatever you don't want posted on paste bin. Another issue arises when a "bug" records your location for 5 hours instead of 5 minutes.

Can you manually Force Stop the Uber app to avoid this as a somewhat-awful workaround?
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