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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

#131

Post by mentat »

visakanv wrote: post #97
bastawhiz wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(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…

> Individual users' data is very closely guarded internally. It's immensely difficult to look at user data without specific access. Overwhelmingly, this data is queried in aggregate and fed into machine learning systems. The risk of abuse is exceptionally low. But so you're saying it's possible? Somebody with high enough access at Uber might be able to stalk an ex-girlfriend and follow her home? Getting into trouble…

A person who knows what they're doing can stalk 50 different ways. Saying that it's worth giving up all the improvements this can make to make that impossible through just this one venue is frankly ridiculous.

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

#132

Post by joesb »

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…

Unless you are using open source phone with your own built chip, Apple and Google may be tracking you without you knowing right now.

How do you know your neighbor are not actually government agency spying on you?

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

#133

Post by 0xmohit »

baumant wrote: post #5

"Uber collects your location data from the time of trip request through five minutes after the trip ends, including when the app is in the background." From source listed in the article: https://help.uber.com/h/ba9dd342-158d-421f-a9ea-0e6c7aaad726

The linked article mentions that you can select "Never" so as not to share your location with Uber.

However, on iOS at least, the latest version of the app is pretty much unusable when you do so. I did write to Uber regarding this a while back and the response was basically "Thank you. We'll forward it to the appropriate team." I suspect that they'd anything about it as the current functionality is by design more than anything else.

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

#134

Post by mentat »

mahyarm wrote: post #80
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counting down to the FBI NSL'ing [1] Uber for persistent, warrantless surveillance... [1] https://www.eff.org/issues/national-security-letters

They don't need to, since they have the much better source of cell phone carriers with 24/7 location. And google android OS and apple to a certain extent.

Yes, people are like "oh NSL". Are they not paying attention to carrier access, stingray, general SIGINT? Like really this is HN at its most ridiculous.

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

#135

Post by visakanv »

twblalock wrote: post #115
visakanv wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

> 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? Because it's non-trivial and it costs a lot of money to do that, in terms of engineers' salaries, storage, etc.

> it costs a lot of money to do that

Well they _have_ raised $15,000,000,000 in cash: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/21/business/dealbook/why-uber...

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

#136

Post by aarpmcgee »

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…

Problem is that a lot of people don't trust Uber :)

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

#137

Post by pjlegato »

electic wrote: post #100

There is something very powerful you can do: 1. Stop using uber. Delete it. There is Lyft and Juno (in select markets). 2. Tell your friends about the dangers of using Uber. You can make a profound change by voting with your pocket book. Lastly, believe it or not, a lot of your friends look to you for tech advice. Be vocal.

This is likely to work about as well as when a large number of tech people went around telling all their friends that Microsoft was evil in the 90s and early 2000s -- which is to say, not at all.

Empirically, very few people care much about their own privacy, and they seem to be entirely uninterested in hearing sermons on the topic. It'd be great if that worked, but it doesn't, so that won't solve this problem.

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

#138

Post by [deleted] »

HappyTypist wrote: post #52
yladiz wrote: post #34

I saw this earlier and had hopes that the update would just let me choose "While Using" in the app settings, like some other apps allow you even if they request access even while not using the app, but the settings only allow for "Always" or "Never" on iPhone. However, you can use Uber without allowing GPS, so it's not all or nothing. I'm a little disturbed that they need any information after I use Uber though. They…

It's to analyse where riders actually go after being dropped off; for example understanding that if you want to go to building XYZ you have to get off here. Collecting data for self driving cars probably.

[deleted]

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

#139

Post by hiram112 »

ajdlinux wrote: post #110
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.

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

On a rooted Android I use Greenify for all apps that I don't want running while I'm not using.

Without root, you could force disable the app when not using, but you would have to re-enable it manually.

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

#140

Post by visakanv »

mentat wrote: post #131
visakanv wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Individual users' data is very closely guarded internally. It's immensely difficult to look at user data without specific access. Overwhelmingly, this data is queried in aggregate and fed into machine learning systems. The risk of abuse is exceptionally low. But so you're saying it's possible? Somebody with high enough access at Uber might be able to stalk an ex-girlfriend and follow her home? Getting into trouble…

A person who knows what they're doing can stalk 50 different ways. Saying that it's worth giving up all the improvements this can make to make that impossible through just this one venue is frankly ridiculous.

> Saying that it's worth giving up all the improvements this can make to make that impossible through just this one venue is frankly ridiculous.

It certainly is; it's also something I've never said

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