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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

#191

Post by coldtea »

zymhan wrote: post #117
forgottenpass wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The data is used for (or can be used for) a number of practical and important purposes. so.. uh.. (eyebrow wag) what else do you use it for that you didn't enumerate? The risk of abuse is exceptionally low. Except, of course, events where you and I disagree about what abuse is. Like tracking journalists around for shits and giggles.

Or a romantic interest. Or any one of a million other reasons. Because no one has ever abused a massive trove of data for such trivial reasons before... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LOVEINT

Yeah, it's not also as if the government (or another government, as Uber is worldwide) can't also take hold of the Uber data...

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

#193

Post by pjmorris »

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…

All of the examples presented seem like they could be approximated pretty well by tracking only up the the point of drop-off, but tracking location and person history. And there are a lot of unintended consequences available along with the example use cases in watching for five minutes after drop-off. How carefully data is kept only lowers the probability of breach or misuse. Only not keeping data zeroes out the probability of breach or misuse.

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

#194

Post by confounded »

nojvek wrote: post #160
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…

Well it's the same company that creepily gives me a code interview in the app because it knows I go to a software company couple of times a week and pushes a job ad. Uber has a lot of sensitive information regarding users. Who goes where and when. This in the wrong hand can be very disastrous. E.g Trump to Uber: "gimme list of all people who to to mosques frequently. No tax for you." Uber: "Here you go. Just don't te…

No tax break needed.

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

#195

Post by bastawhiz »

AlexandrB wrote: post #151
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. For now. You haven't mentioned how long this data is kept, which means I can assume "forever". This means that a future change of policy, an acquisition, or a…

> If you want higher detail location information, do what Google did and send out cars with sensors.

It's not just about the locations, but about the interactions between the rider(s), driver, the location, and the time. A location might be difficult to pull over at during rush hour, but nearly empty later on. Drivers might be unable to get very close to an event venue. Certain streets might be difficult to drop passengers off safely on, based on traffic conditions (though we wouldn't know that). And of course, there are many applications around customer support that couldn't be solved otherwise.

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

#196

Post by null0pointer »

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…

> as far as I know you only can see that some app is accessing your GPS currently, not which one(s) exactly

On iOS if you go into [Settings > Privacy > Location Services] you can see which apps have used your location "recently" or in the last 24 hours. There is a legend at the bottom of that page for what the icons mean.

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

#197

Post by mortenjorck »

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…

There's a simple way to send a message: Set the location services setting to "Never" and just enter addresses for now (copy and paste from Maps if it's easier).

The important thing is that their analytics will pick this up, and if enough users do it, hopefully point toward re-enabling "While using."

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

#198

Post by bastawhiz »

rm999 wrote: post #177
bastawhiz wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You missed my point. I said that if we accidentally started collecting all user locations, you wouldn't have to worry about us getting an NSL because our servers would have crashed and burned and no data would have managed to have been collected. Uber's infrastructure is completely incapable of handling that volume of data, because it was never designed to handle it. As far as software bugs go, accidentally collectin…

> Uber's infrastructure is completely incapable of handling that volume of data, The data volume isn't very big. Let's assume Uber records locations for 20 million users and pings each user every 5 minutes. We're talking about 20 million users * 12 events per hour * 24 hours * 16 bytes (my generous assumption of how much it would cost to store a user id, timestamp, and precise long/lat data) = ~100 GB a day or 3 TB a…

Being a bug, though, it would record with the fidelity of the Uber app. Which is a lot more than every five minutes.

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

#199

Post by brokenmachine »

null0pointer wrote: post #196
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…

> as far as I know you only can see that some app is accessing your GPS currently, not which one(s) exactly On iOS if you go into [Settings > Privacy > Location Services] you can see which apps have used your location "recently" or in the last 24 hours. There is a legend at the bottom of that page for what the icons mean.

Is there any way to see on Android?

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

#200

Post by brokenmachine »

0xmohit wrote: post #176
justinator wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> things are locked down _pretty damn tight_ around sensitive data Commenting, to save this little gem for the inevitable time when Uber gets hacked. Again.

Remember that not all hacks are made public.

Maybe he means the next inevitable public hack.
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