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(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 w

(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 do a better job of choosing a route if we know you're able to get out of the car safely) - Optimizing pickups and dropoffs around events or certain times of the day or week (Caltrain riders: imagine if we suggested pickups at 5th and Townsend instead of 4th and King during rush hour. Much easier to find your driver and prevents congestion) - Dropping riders off closer to the "correct" entrance to their building - Dropping riders off in a location that's easier for the driver to depart from without making the rider walk too far (e.g., instead of getting trapped in a weird road or parking lot) - Analyze where riders ask drivers to make stops mid-trip and make better experiences around that. As far as trust and safety goes, we can avoid charging you if your driver was looking for you at the wrong location and gave up. We can better see where you were actually dropped off at, if your driver lies and leaves the app running after you've left the car. Leave your phone in the driver's car, and we can potentially do more than just put you in touch with them. 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.

visakanv 10y ago
> 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 for it of course, but it wouldn't matter after a murder-suicide? Statistically improbable I know, but that's the sort of thing that people worry about
- joesb 10y ago
  > But so you're saying it's possible? People with access to hardware can probably do anything if they really want to. People at the bank can remove all your money in the account by going directly into the database as well.
- BurningFrog 10y ago
  If data exists inside an organization, it is always, by definition, possible that someone can abuse it.
- bastawhiz 10y ago
  I mean, at the end of the day, there's someone that can SSH into some server if they were really determined. There's logging and auditing that happens, though, so you'd almost certainly get caught. Could you craft some sort of perfect crime to avoid detection? It would be super hard, but there's no universe with perfectly secure software. It's a big system, and there are thousands of moving parts, and the likelihood of you actually getting very far is insanely low. But that's the same story with that one engineer at Google that has SSH access to the server with the keys to the storage cluster for Gmail. Or the person that writes queries for the Hive cluster that manages Cortana queries at Microsoft. Or the person that writes the API layer that sits in front of the order history service at Amazon. There's a million ways an engineer at any big company could abuse their powers. But we put safeguards in place, we watch each other, and we do our best to serve our users as best we can. I say this in a general sense, not specifically to Uber. It comes down to trust.
  - visakanv 10y ago
    > I say this in a general sense, not specifically to Uber. It comes down to trust. Yeah, I suppose this is true. Thanks for sharing your thoughts, I appreciate it.
  - pdkl95 10y ago
    > there's no universe with perfectly secure software This is why it's important to minimize the attack surface. Yes, there is always going to be risk when you store tracking data. You are choosing to create that risk by storing any data beyond what is specifically necessary. Uses such as "Optimizing pickups and dropoffs" are optional, which you more or less admit when you said it was something "we could do". Alternatively, you could prioritize the safety of your customers by minimizing the risks they acquire when they use your service. The data collected for the ride could be minimized. You could expunge user data when it is no longer needed. You could find ways to store only aggregate data instead per-user values. > we put safeguards in place You also made design and business decisions that created the need for those safeguards. You are protecting your users from a problem that you created. edit: > we do our best to serve our users as best we can You could be indemnifying you users for any damages that derive from the data you are choosing to store.
forgottenpass 10y ago
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.
- zymhan 10y ago
  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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LOVEINT
  - coldtea 10y ago
    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...
ultrasaurus 10y ago
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.
- callalex 10y ago
  Then drag the pin a bit further, or even crazier, say "hey can you drop me over there?"
teej 10y ago
Thanks for being open and sharing. This all seems really reasonable to me.
stirner 10y ago
Your haughty attitude toward privacy is really chilling. If Uber hasn't received a NSL [1] I would be astounded, and your employer doesn't have a great track record [2]. Please think hard about the world you are helping to create. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter [2] http://www.buzzfeed.com/johanabhuiyan/uber-is-investigating-its-top-new-york-executive-for-privacy http://www.buzzfeed.com/johanabhuiyan/uber-is-investigating-...
- bastawhiz 10y ago
  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 collecting all user locations always would be a disastrous one for Uber, not for user privacy. Have we gotten an NSL? I don't know, but I'd guess we probably have. It would be foolish to think otherwise.
  - kevin_thibedeau 10y ago
    > Uber's infrastructure is completely incapable of handling that volume of data, because it was never designed to handle it. That is completely irrelevant. The powers that be can siphon off the data as it comes in. The danger is in receiving excess data in the first place, making yourself a more enticing target for collection activities.
    - bastawhiz 10y ago
      That Uber could have a bug that sends all location data is irrelevant. Google, Apple, Lyft, Yelp, Foursquare, Microsoft, or any other company that has any app that accesses and transmits location data could have an identical bug that presents an identical problem, and Google and Apple already regularly collect and transmit that data all the time without it being a bug. And being a bug of biblical proportions, it'll get resolved very, very quickly because it would be causing a hugely expensive outage. Uber also only uses strong TLS for connections, so "the powers that be" will have a heck of a time taking a real heap of gigabits (terabits?) per second of encrypted data and doing anything particularly useful with it.
taneq 10y ago
Thanks for the insight into what you (may) actually do with the data! There are so many companies demanding intrusive amounts of personal data that it's easy to become cynical. All of the points that you've listed here would work just as well with anonymized data. Obviously if users are being picked up or dropped off at their house (for instance) then making every journey truly anonymous would be impossible without damaging the data, but you could still strip out explicitly identifying metadata. Are you able to tell us what sort of measures are taken in this regard?
- bastawhiz 10y ago
  > Are you able to tell us what sort of measures are taken in this regard? I don't work on this stuff myself, so I can't say.
ak2196 10y ago
>> The risk of abuse is exceptionally low. I call bullshit. This coming from the same guys who were mapping one night stands using ride data? What were you guys studying there. Fornicating habits of young adults in large metropolitans? http://www.whosdrivingyou.org/blog/ubers-deleted-rides-of-glory-blog-post http://www.whosdrivingyou.org/blog/ubers-deleted-rides-of-gl... I almost forgot about the time you guys were tracking journalists. Uber has a reputation and history of being a "shady" company.
- bastawhiz 10y ago
  > Uber has a reputation and history of being a "shady" company. I'm not going to try to defend our reputation. But it's worth saying that things are locked down _pretty damn tight_ around sensitive data. I've worked in enterprise file storage in the past, and the internal security at Uber is far better (relatively speaking), and continues to mature.
  - 0xmohit 10y ago
    Would you be willing to share information about what % of Uber's revenue is accrued from monetizing user information? EDIT: BTW, did you hear from your support that there are users who aren't pleased with the new feature?
  - username223 10y ago
    > I'm not going to try to defend our reputation [as a shady company]. Someone well above your pay grade probably should. As far as I can tell, Uber's business model is psychopathic levels of regulatory and psychological arbitrage.
    - ohwello 10y ago
      What is "psychological arbitrage"?
      - ambicapter 10y ago
        Stuff like Uber figured out they could charge people more when their battery was low.
pjlegato 10y ago
> The risk of abuse is exceptionally low. But there's no oversight whatsoever. We should just take Uber's word for that -- despite the company's public track record of repeated privacy violations in the past? And even if Uber itself has suddenly converted into an unimpeachable guardian of personal privacy, it could always be hacked (and probably already has, just like the NSA and everyone else.) The hackers are not likely to share the same moral compunctions about privacy.
yladiz 10y ago
So a follow up question: which is that data used for and which could it be used for currently, and what's planned? I also noticed you said that it's queried in aggregate, but that is distinct from it living in aggregate. Does this mean that you actually do keep my individual GPS data and it could be looked up later? I am still unconvinced that this is necessary, even with those (potential) improvements. I am relatively okay with allowing Uber access to my location outside of the app during the period between me requesting a ride and being picked up, and of course I'm okay with allowing access when I'm physically in the car. But after I get dropped off is a much harder thing to accept. Most of the things you suggested were for before I get picked up, not after. In fact, the only things you suggested were not on that bullet list but in the second to last paragraph ("we can avoid charging you if your driver was looking for you at the wrong location and gave up"; "We can better see where you were actually dropped off at, if your driver lies and leaves the app running after you've left the car"). I understand that Uber itself is trying to be a better company and is trying to move beyond its past life as a cavalier company that suggested looking up information about journalists who write negative things about the company, but it's a really hard image to shake and understandably many people are distrustful of a company whose executives were okay with this. I could very much see a member of Uber's counsel requesting GPS data on some user who filed a lawsuit and giving it to a private investigator (considering that Uber did in fact request information about and that a PI to do investigation into a person who filed a lawsuit against Kalanick).
- bastawhiz 10y ago
  > which is that data used for and which could it be used for currently, and what's planned? I don't know specific programs that are in place or upcoming, not my jam. > Does this mean that you actually do keep my individual GPS data and it could be looked up later? Trip location data is attached to users. You can look it up yourself on the Uber website (riders.uber.com). With regard to data collected from rider devices, I don't know the technical details but I assume it's not living in aggregate. At the end of the day, we're an engineering- and data-driven company. Pickups and dropoffs are overwhelmingly the most painful parts of the average Uber ride, and we know startlingly little about them: that's what this initiative is about. We want to make things better for our users, and overwhelmingly, things like this do lead to improvements. Whether you trust what we do with the five minutes of data is up to you. I'm not here to speak about our character, though I certainly wouldn't be around if I thought Uber is a bad company.
aarpmcgee 10y ago
Problem is that a lot of people don't trust Uber :)
0xmohit 10y ago
Why can't you let the feature be opt-in? Your iOS app effectively turns useless when choosing "Never". You can't do anything other than booking a cab. No access to account information, ride information, anything else. ---- Yeah, I get what it is when you say: Improving "suggested pickup" locations If your app watches me 24x7, then it'd be able to predict pickup locations better. Good job. It can't get creepier.
- yladiz 10y ago
  In fairness you can access the app, it's just the little hamburger icon is grayed out making it seem like you can't access it. I was able to click it just fine even with the "ENABLE GPS" overlay.
- bastawhiz 10y ago
  Suggested pickup locations are a feature we have in SF: https://techcrunch.com/2015/07/08/uber-suggested-pickup-points/ https://techcrunch.com/2015/07/08/uber-suggested-pickup-poin... All it does is help you pick spots near your pickup location that are more easily accessible to drivers.
dman 10y ago
This has to be a goldmine for divorce lawyers.
AlexandrB 10y ago
> 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 merger can expose this data to a variety of third parties (not to mention the obvious possible exposure to governments). The reasons you have listed for gathering the data are not sufficient to offset the future risk to me. Moreover why should I do unpaid data acquisition for Uber while bearing all the risk in case the data is exposed? If you want higher detail location information, do what Google did and send out cars with sensors.
- bastawhiz 10y ago
  > 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.
koticheshte 10y ago
Can individual users get access to their own data? Can they take this data with them, similar to Google's takeout?
- bastawhiz 10y ago
  Check out riders.uber.com
pilsetnieks 10y ago
> 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. It is impossible to take your word for it. After so, so many companies have been caught intentionally or unintentionally mishandling user data, there is no reason to believe that Uber is the exception. An extraordinary claim demands extraordinary proof.
- bastawhiz 10y ago
  > It is impossible to take your word for it. I'm not asking you to. If you'd like to come in and interview for a position and eventually see for yourself, though, I'm happy to accept your résumé. :)
  - RodericDay 10y ago
    jesus, what a bad answer. nice bribe joke amid allegations of unethical behavior.
uberq 10y ago
None of these use cases demand "always" to be the only choice, with no way to choose "while using". Your company is grossly overstepping privacy bounds, and your excuse making post is largely irrelevant. And it's wholly reasonable to be distrustful of a place where execs threaten to blackmail journalists and remain employed. It'd be ridiculous to trust Uber.
pjmorris 10y ago
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.
ixacto 10y ago
If you can't see the potential for abuse then you need to take a step back and look at things in a different perspective. There is a very real possibility that Uber could be hacked in the future, or has already been hacked. Can Ubers infrastructure withstand an Operation Aurora level attack?
gchokov 10y ago
Right! Now that we know you are engineer, you can just as well go to your PM and tell him that people do not like this. I have permanently disabled UBER on my device, and will turn it on only and if ever use Uber again. Big step back for the privacy, and many people I know like the traditional cabs because of that. I don't know what you do guys, but recently, uber is becoming an uber bloat. Messy UI, bugs everywhere, shady taxes because driver can't find me (?!?!?), also when I dispute my money, they go to my account and not on my debit card, from where they are stolen from! Yeah, I am pretty pissed. Won't use uber anytime soon. Edit: Oh, and one more thing. Start writing release notes, as the normal apps and people do!
newman314 10y ago
Why not just bring back the "while using only" if only to back up your claim that there is nothing nefarious going on. Giving people choice is good.
rajathagasthya 10y ago
Honestly, none of the examples you gave above is good enough for me to give me location information to Uber (or any other company). I'm sure you have the best of intentions as an engineer to improve your service (and so do your co-workers), but I (and a lot of others) don't trust any company with sensitive personal data. I can understand if you gave the "Always" option in addition to the "While Using" option with this explanation, but strong arming your users to give an all or nothing choice is bad.
op00to 10y ago
For all this safety shit you're talking about, does that mean if I get dropped off in an unsafe manner or unsafe area, I can now sue Uber if I get hurt. Seems like if you're making all these efforts, you're making a promise of warranty that my entire trip is safe, even after I open the car door and step out into traffic.
rrock 10y ago
You already had that information. I doubt most users switch away from the uber app the instant they leave the car, so the "while using" permissions would allow you to collect all of that. I also doubt that Uber as a company, and Uber engineers individually, hadn't realized that already. I'm going to deny permission, and call Uber from Apple maps. No reason for you to track me from M-F if I only use Uber Sa-Su.

visakanv 10y ago

joesb 10y ago
> But so you're saying it's possible? People with access to hardware can probably do anything if they really want to. People at the bank can remove all your money in the account by going directly into the database as well.
BurningFrog 10y ago
If data exists inside an organization, it is always, by definition, possible that someone can abuse it.
bastawhiz 10y ago
I mean, at the end of the day, there's someone that can SSH into some server if they were really determined. There's logging and auditing that happens, though, so you'd almost certainly get caught. Could you craft some sort of perfect crime to avoid detection? It would be super hard, but there's no universe with perfectly secure software. It's a big system, and there are thousands of moving parts, and the likelihood of you actually getting very far is insanely low. But that's the same story with that one engineer at Google that has SSH access to the server with the keys to the storage cluster for Gmail. Or the person that writes queries for the Hive cluster that manages Cortana queries at Microsoft. Or the person that writes the API layer that sits in front of the order history service at Amazon. There's a million ways an engineer at any big company could abuse their powers. But we put safeguards in place, we watch each other, and we do our best to serve our users as best we can. I say this in a general sense, not specifically to Uber. It comes down to trust.
- visakanv 10y ago
  > I say this in a general sense, not specifically to Uber. It comes down to trust. Yeah, I suppose this is true. Thanks for sharing your thoughts, I appreciate it.
- pdkl95 10y ago
  > there's no universe with perfectly secure software This is why it's important to minimize the attack surface. Yes, there is always going to be risk when you store tracking data. You are choosing to create that risk by storing any data beyond what is specifically necessary. Uses such as "Optimizing pickups and dropoffs" are optional, which you more or less admit when you said it was something "we could do". Alternatively, you could prioritize the safety of your customers by minimizing the risks they acquire when they use your service. The data collected for the ride could be minimized. You could expunge user data when it is no longer needed. You could find ways to store only aggregate data instead per-user values. > we put safeguards in place You also made design and business decisions that created the need for those safeguards. You are protecting your users from a problem that you created. edit: > we do our best to serve our users as best we can You could be indemnifying you users for any damages that derive from the data you are choosing to store.

forgottenpass 10y ago

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.

zymhan 10y ago
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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LOVEINT
- coldtea 10y ago
  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...

ultrasaurus 10y ago

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.

callalex 10y ago
Then drag the pin a bit further, or even crazier, say "hey can you drop me over there?"

teej 10y ago

Thanks for being open and sharing. This all seems really reasonable to me.

stirner 10y ago

Your haughty attitude toward privacy is really chilling. If Uber hasn't received a NSL [1] I would be astounded, and your employer doesn't have a great track record [2]. Please think hard about the world you are helping to create. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter [2] http://www.buzzfeed.com/johanabhuiyan/uber-is-investigating-its-top-new-york-executive-for-privacy http://www.buzzfeed.com/johanabhuiyan/uber-is-investigating-...

bastawhiz 10y ago
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 collecting all user locations always would be a disastrous one for Uber, not for user privacy. Have we gotten an NSL? I don't know, but I'd guess we probably have. It would be foolish to think otherwise.
- kevin_thibedeau 10y ago
  > Uber's infrastructure is completely incapable of handling that volume of data, because it was never designed to handle it. That is completely irrelevant. The powers that be can siphon off the data as it comes in. The danger is in receiving excess data in the first place, making yourself a more enticing target for collection activities.
  - bastawhiz 10y ago
    That Uber could have a bug that sends all location data is irrelevant. Google, Apple, Lyft, Yelp, Foursquare, Microsoft, or any other company that has any app that accesses and transmits location data could have an identical bug that presents an identical problem, and Google and Apple already regularly collect and transmit that data all the time without it being a bug. And being a bug of biblical proportions, it'll get resolved very, very quickly because it would be causing a hugely expensive outage. Uber also only uses strong TLS for connections, so "the powers that be" will have a heck of a time taking a real heap of gigabits (terabits?) per second of encrypted data and doing anything particularly useful with it.

taneq 10y ago

Thanks for the insight into what you (may) actually do with the data! There are so many companies demanding intrusive amounts of personal data that it's easy to become cynical. All of the points that you've listed here would work just as well with anonymized data. Obviously if users are being picked up or dropped off at their house (for instance) then making every journey truly anonymous would be impossible without damaging the data, but you could still strip out explicitly identifying metadata. Are you able to tell us what sort of measures are taken in this regard?

bastawhiz 10y ago
> Are you able to tell us what sort of measures are taken in this regard? I don't work on this stuff myself, so I can't say.

ak2196 10y ago

>> The risk of abuse is exceptionally low. I call bullshit. This coming from the same guys who were mapping one night stands using ride data? What were you guys studying there. Fornicating habits of young adults in large metropolitans? http://www.whosdrivingyou.org/blog/ubers-deleted-rides-of-glory-blog-post http://www.whosdrivingyou.org/blog/ubers-deleted-rides-of-gl... I almost forgot about the time you guys were tracking journalists. Uber has a reputation and history of being a "shady" company.

bastawhiz 10y ago
> Uber has a reputation and history of being a "shady" company. I'm not going to try to defend our reputation. But it's worth saying that things are locked down _pretty damn tight_ around sensitive data. I've worked in enterprise file storage in the past, and the internal security at Uber is far better (relatively speaking), and continues to mature.
- 0xmohit 10y ago
  Would you be willing to share information about what % of Uber's revenue is accrued from monetizing user information? EDIT: BTW, did you hear from your support that there are users who aren't pleased with the new feature?
- username223 10y ago
  > I'm not going to try to defend our reputation [as a shady company]. Someone well above your pay grade probably should. As far as I can tell, Uber's business model is psychopathic levels of regulatory and psychological arbitrage.
  - ohwello 10y ago
    What is "psychological arbitrage"?
    - ambicapter 10y ago
      Stuff like Uber figured out they could charge people more when their battery was low.

pjlegato 10y ago

> The risk of abuse is exceptionally low. But there's no oversight whatsoever. We should just take Uber's word for that -- despite the company's public track record of repeated privacy violations in the past? And even if Uber itself has suddenly converted into an unimpeachable guardian of personal privacy, it could always be hacked (and probably already has, just like the NSA and everyone else.) The hackers are not likely to share the same moral compunctions about privacy.

yladiz 10y ago

So a follow up question: which is that data used for and which could it be used for currently, and what's planned? I also noticed you said that it's queried in aggregate, but that is distinct from it living in aggregate. Does this mean that you actually do keep my individual GPS data and it could be looked up later? I am still unconvinced that this is necessary, even with those (potential) improvements. I am relatively okay with allowing Uber access to my location outside of the app during the period between me requesting a ride and being picked up, and of course I'm okay with allowing access when I'm physically in the car. But after I get dropped off is a much harder thing to accept. Most of the things you suggested were for before I get picked up, not after. In fact, the only things you suggested were not on that bullet list but in the second to last paragraph ("we can avoid charging you if your driver was looking for you at the wrong location and gave up"; "We can better see where you were actually dropped off at, if your driver lies and leaves the app running after you've left the car"). I understand that Uber itself is trying to be a better company and is trying to move beyond its past life as a cavalier company that suggested looking up information about journalists who write negative things about the company, but it's a really hard image to shake and understandably many people are distrustful of a company whose executives were okay with this. I could very much see a member of Uber's counsel requesting GPS data on some user who filed a lawsuit and giving it to a private investigator (considering that Uber did in fact request information about and that a PI to do investigation into a person who filed a lawsuit against Kalanick).

bastawhiz 10y ago
> which is that data used for and which could it be used for currently, and what's planned? I don't know specific programs that are in place or upcoming, not my jam. > Does this mean that you actually do keep my individual GPS data and it could be looked up later? Trip location data is attached to users. You can look it up yourself on the Uber website (riders.uber.com). With regard to data collected from rider devices, I don't know the technical details but I assume it's not living in aggregate. At the end of the day, we're an engineering- and data-driven company. Pickups and dropoffs are overwhelmingly the most painful parts of the average Uber ride, and we know startlingly little about them: that's what this initiative is about. We want to make things better for our users, and overwhelmingly, things like this do lead to improvements. Whether you trust what we do with the five minutes of data is up to you. I'm not here to speak about our character, though I certainly wouldn't be around if I thought Uber is a bad company.

aarpmcgee 10y ago

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

0xmohit 10y ago

Why can't you let the feature be opt-in? Your iOS app effectively turns useless when choosing "Never". You can't do anything other than booking a cab. No access to account information, ride information, anything else. ---- Yeah, I get what it is when you say: Improving "suggested pickup" locations If your app watches me 24x7, then it'd be able to predict pickup locations better. Good job. It can't get creepier.

yladiz 10y ago
In fairness you can access the app, it's just the little hamburger icon is grayed out making it seem like you can't access it. I was able to click it just fine even with the "ENABLE GPS" overlay.
bastawhiz 10y ago
Suggested pickup locations are a feature we have in SF: https://techcrunch.com/2015/07/08/uber-suggested-pickup-points/ https://techcrunch.com/2015/07/08/uber-suggested-pickup-poin... All it does is help you pick spots near your pickup location that are more easily accessible to drivers.

dman 10y ago

This has to be a goldmine for divorce lawyers.

AlexandrB 10y ago

> 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 merger can expose this data to a variety of third parties (not to mention the obvious possible exposure to governments). The reasons you have listed for gathering the data are not sufficient to offset the future risk to me. Moreover why should I do unpaid data acquisition for Uber while bearing all the risk in case the data is exposed? If you want higher detail location information, do what Google did and send out cars with sensors.

bastawhiz 10y ago
> 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.

koticheshte 10y ago

Can individual users get access to their own data? Can they take this data with them, similar to Google's takeout?

bastawhiz 10y ago
Check out riders.uber.com

pilsetnieks 10y ago

bastawhiz 10y ago
> It is impossible to take your word for it. I'm not asking you to. If you'd like to come in and interview for a position and eventually see for yourself, though, I'm happy to accept your résumé. :)
- RodericDay 10y ago
  jesus, what a bad answer. nice bribe joke amid allegations of unethical behavior.

uberq 10y ago

None of these use cases demand "always" to be the only choice, with no way to choose "while using". Your company is grossly overstepping privacy bounds, and your excuse making post is largely irrelevant. And it's wholly reasonable to be distrustful of a place where execs threaten to blackmail journalists and remain employed. It'd be ridiculous to trust Uber.

pjmorris 10y ago

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.

ixacto 10y ago

If you can't see the potential for abuse then you need to take a step back and look at things in a different perspective. There is a very real possibility that Uber could be hacked in the future, or has already been hacked. Can Ubers infrastructure withstand an Operation Aurora level attack?

gchokov 10y ago

Right! Now that we know you are engineer, you can just as well go to your PM and tell him that people do not like this. I have permanently disabled UBER on my device, and will turn it on only and if ever use Uber again. Big step back for the privacy, and many people I know like the traditional cabs because of that. I don't know what you do guys, but recently, uber is becoming an uber bloat. Messy UI, bugs everywhere, shady taxes because driver can't find me (?!?!?), also when I dispute my money, they go to my account and not on my debit card, from where they are stolen from! Yeah, I am pretty pissed. Won't use uber anytime soon. Edit: Oh, and one more thing. Start writing release notes, as the normal apps and people do!

newman314 10y ago

Why not just bring back the "while using only" if only to back up your claim that there is nothing nefarious going on. Giving people choice is good.

rajathagasthya 10y ago

Honestly, none of the examples you gave above is good enough for me to give me location information to Uber (or any other company). I'm sure you have the best of intentions as an engineer to improve your service (and so do your co-workers), but I (and a lot of others) don't trust any company with sensitive personal data. I can understand if you gave the "Always" option in addition to the "While Using" option with this explanation, but strong arming your users to give an all or nothing choice is bad.

op00to 10y ago

For all this safety shit you're talking about, does that mean if I get dropped off in an unsafe manner or unsafe area, I can now sue Uber if I get hurt. Seems like if you're making all these efforts, you're making a promise of warranty that my entire trip is safe, even after I open the car door and step out into traffic.

rrock 10y ago

You already had that information. I doubt most users switch away from the uber app the instant they leave the car, so the "while using" permissions would allow you to collect all of that. I also doubt that Uber as a company, and Uber engineers individually, hadn't realized that already. I'm going to deny permission, and call Uber from Apple maps. No reason for you to track me from M-F if I only use Uber Sa-Su.