GironSec has illustrated how Uber is reporting all this user confidential data back to the base. He has decompiled the code of the Uber Android app and found it to be collecting and sending the following information back to Uber: GironSec’s research concludes that it uses following permissions with your permission From the above you can notice that a taxi provider like Uber is taking the Big Brother talk rather seriously. It is left to your imagination as to what a taxi hiring service can do with this kind of data. Some mere mortals are suggesting it might be an anti-fraud measure to help Uber detect and combat fake accounts set up by its competitors. However sanity prevails and the fact remains that UBER is collecting personal data without your explicit permission which constitutes to infringing your basic right. In United States the law stipulates that collecting data without appropriate permission constitutes malware and compromises users’ personal data. Techworm had already reported about Uber being panned for its VPs sadistic comments of it setting aside $1 million to research team to expose the personal lives of media critics and their families. This was supposed to be done with the same tool that Uber is using now, the God’s View Tool. You can read about the same here. It seems Uber’s Gods View tool is doing much more than hounding journos and anti-uber camp. GironSec has torn apart the Uber Android App but he has not published much about Uber’s iPhone App. It remains to be seen whether the Uber iPhone users privacy is also being breached in the same way as Android App. Given the seriousness of the issue it also remains to be seen whether Google will pull the Uber App down from Google Play citing serious privacy infringement clauses. Remember, Google has a conflict of interest in Uber’s case as it has a US$258 million dollar stake in Uber. Gods View Tool eh?
