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Montse PB/Flickr (CC BY 2.0) | Remix by Jason Reed

Uber can’t even keep its lost-and-found database private

More careless behavior from the multi-billion-dollar behemoth.

 

Dylan Love

Tech

Posted on Feb 10, 2015   Updated on May 29, 2021, 2:04 pm CDT

Uber‘s festival of blunders continues: Part of the company’s internal lost-and-found database has been publicly viewable.

By looking at the area codes of the customer phone numbers (customer data was completely unprotected), Motherboard discovered that it’s most likely the database for the Los Angeles area.

The database details 155 items that were lost in area Uber cars since December, everything from cell phones to medical weed cards. Some drivers want money for turning in riders’ missing items: “INSISTENT ON GETTING $10,” says the entry for a lost car key.

Uber of course maintains such a database because it wants to help reunite its customers with their missing stuff. But obviously it was poorly implemented and customer data was easily accessible.

It’s just the latest in a long line of Uber disregard for user information and privacy. This past November, a high-level Uber executive publicly mulled running opposition research on journalists last year, and a number of employees had been mishandling the company’s “God view,” which shows the live location of every Uber ride. 

H/T Motherboard Photo via Montse PB/Flickr (CC BY 2.0) | Remix by Jason Reed

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*First Published: Feb 10, 2015, 12:13 pm CST