Uber is forced to stop snooping on its customers

TAXI app firm Uber is to ditch a controversial feature that let it snoop on customers after their drivers dropped them off.

The company said it was tracking passengers after they alighted to help ensure their safety.

But it has backed down due to privacy concerns after a backlash from critics who accused it of tracking customers without consent.

Staff have been caught abusing the tracking feature to snoop on ex-girlfriends as well as politicians and celebrities such as Beyonce.

Uber once even used the information it has on customer drop-offs and pick-ups to try to pinpoint hot spots for one-night stands.

Joe Sullivan, the Silicon Valley firm’s chief security officer, admitted Uber had made a mistake in taking more information from users without explaining why. He said there had also been a ‘lack of expertise’ on protecting data.

The snooping row comes as Dara Khosrowshahi, the 48-year-old boss of US travel company Expedia, prepares to take over at Uber following the departure of Travis Kalanick.

He has to overhaul the taxi app firm’s image following a string of scandals, repair relations with investors and make it profitable.

Uber has been accused of failing to protect driver and user information and of being deceptive about employee snooping by the Federal Trade Commission, settling with the US regulator two weeks ago.

Last November, Uber made changes to its app so users could only choose between being tracked ‘always’ or ‘never’, removing an option that meant they were tracked only when using the app.

It meant those who did not want to be tracked had to input the start and end points of every journey, making the app less convenient.

Uber insisted it only tracked users for five minutes after a trip ended – for safety reasons. But it said the move will now be reversed with changes to its locationtracking feature initially available to iPhone users and then to Android users.

Big Brother Watch spokesman Ben Snaith said: ‘Customers should never be tracked without their knowledge or consent. Uber has only reversed a feature which should never have existed in the first place.’