According to a new lawsuit, Uber is being sued for spying on "high-profile politicians, celebrities [including Beyoncé], and even personal acquaintances of Uber employees," The Guardian reports.
Uber employees would use a tool called "God View," which allows them to track the location of Uber vehicles and their customers who have requested cars, according to Uber's former forensic investigator Samuel Ward Spangenberg's court testimony. Uber has come under fire for mistreating customer data before, once in 2011 when venture capitalist Peter Sims was tracked by a visitor to Uber's Chicago headquarters, and 2014 when Buzzfeed reported that Uber's New York general manager spoke about using it to track a reporter.
In an official statement, Uber says that it "continues to increase our security investments and many of these efforts, like our multi-factor authentication checks and bug bounty program, have been widely reported. We have hundreds of security and privacy experts working around the clock to protect our data. This includes enforcing to authorised employees solely for purposes of their job responsibilities, and all potential violations are quickly and thoroughly investigated."
Spangenberg disagrees, however, also claiming that there are a number of other ethical breaches at Uber, including storing driver and employee information in an insecure manner. His testimony from October further claims that he was fired because of his concerns over the company's lack of security, for which he was fired 11 months after making them known to Uber executives, and is now suing them for age discrimination and whistleblower retaliation.
Uber has confirmed that "fewer than 10” employees have been fired for abusing "God View."
