Uber Reaches Settlement With New York Due To God View

The modern day taxi service called Uber has become subject to scrutiny due to its business model. Their model consist of hiring people like you and me to be human taxi drivers for people in and around the city. This is all done through an app where users can request a rider from wherever they are at. With its presence in over 60 countries and about 300 cities, Uber books about 1 million rides a day. With their rapid success, Uber has created stiff competition against companies like Yellow Cab. Uber now faces more controversy due to a data breach that occurred in 2014, although they did reach a settlement with New York. The deal is part of a New York Settlement that Attorney General Eric Schneiderman put together, and requires Uber to adopt a form of privacy protection for their riders and to also pay the fine of $20,000.

Uber’s recent legal troubles don’t just stem from a security breach. With the data of about 50,000 drivers exposed, a tool available to Uber employees dubbed “god view” concerned people about how Uber was handling personal data on individual users. The God View tool allowed Uber employees to see the location of Uber cars and was about to track an individual’s Uber ride and their travel log. All of this was done without the user’s knowledge or permission.  Of course this eventually led to New York investigating Uber’s security practices and it resulted in the modern day taxi company to pay a $20,000 fine. The fine was just for the data breach in 2014, but the settlement itself covered for the God View tool in which Uber restricted access to all employees.

According to Uber, they are pleased to have come to an agreement and ensures that they will protect the personal privacy of all their employees and riders that use the service. So with all of that mess out of the way, Uber can proceed to offer affordable rides across town to people in the 300 different states and 60 countries. With the settlement now over, Uber should have more time to devote to their other endeavors, such as their UberEats service.