Uber plans to stop sharing rider drop and pickup location history with drivers

Since the past one year, Uber has been paddling in some very troubled waters. It has faced charges of workplace harassment, theft of trade secrets from Waymo, and a lot more besides. It even lost its license in London. Other complaints that followed alleged that Uber was not performing an adequate background check on its drivers before hiring them. This time, Uber is trying to bring some measure of privacy for its riders. According to a Gizmodo report, it is bringing changes to the driver’s app. The drivers will not be able to see the pickup and drop location history of its riders in the database once the ride is finished. [caption id=“attachment_4382271” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Uber logo. Reuters[/caption] In the past, various instances have been reported about Uber drivers stalking women using their pickup or drop locations mentioned in the rider history. The rider data is saved in Uber’s database for drivers indefinitely. Even if a user leaves Uber, the data is still accessible to Uber and the driver. The driver can look at all its riders’ address history. The more pertinent question of course, is why drivers were allowed access to this data. Therefore, to protect user data from possible misuse Uber has decided that instead of these details, a broad location of the riders would be shown in the driver’s app so that if these drivers have any grievances or customer-related issues it can be solved. An Uber spokesperson reportedly said that the new design would help both the drivers and the riders. The access to ‘broad location’ given to the driver would help them in dealing with the issue. With the  General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) coming into effect, the likes of Google, Facebook, Uber and others will be forced to be more mindful of user privacy. As per GDPR laws, a user is allowed to have access to their data and has a right to have it deleted.