Uber leaks drivers’ personal data

Infamous smart cab company Uber has hit the news again for all the wrong reasons, having accidentally released personal data for hundreds of drivers.

The leak appears to stem from the new Uber Partner app, which was designed to provide its drivers with more information about the service and its drivers.

They got to learn more about their colleagues than they were bargaining for however, with Social Security numbers, scans of driver licenses, tax forms, and other data all made freely available.

As Motherboard reports, Uber drivers noticed the info leak whilst uploading their own data on Tuesday evening, and began to warn others through various online forums.

Uber has since confirmed the issue and released a statement. “We were notified about a bug impacting a fraction of our US drivers earlier this afternoon,” it said. “Within 30 minutes our security team had fixed the issue.”

“We’d like to thank the driver who drew it to our attention and apologise to those drivers whose information may have been affected. Their security is incredibly important to Uber and we will follow up with them directly.”

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Uber claims that the data leak affected 674 US-based drivers, leading to the exposure of fewer than a thousand documents.

It perhaps wouldn’t be seen as so bad if Uber hadn’t already suffered from a major security issue in recent months. This previous one saw hackers retaining control of compromised Uber accounts – a vulnerability that has only just been fixed.

Meanwhile in this country, Uber is under attack from a very different source. TfL is proposing damaging new restrictions on the service that would severely restrict its operations in the capital, prompting 100,000 Londoners to come to the company’s defence.