Uber is hoping to slam the door on New York City’s request toaccesscertain data about its riders. The city is looking to obtain information about when and where customers of ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft get picked up and dropped off.
Mayor Bill de Blasio and officials at the city Taxi and Limousine Commission said they want the data to make sure drivers aren’t working too many hours as part of the mayor’s “Vision Zero” campaign to decrease traffic deaths. Uber, however, sees it as an invasion of customer privacy.
In an email to customers on Thursday, Uber said the city wants to “piece together the full details of every trip you ever take. Several independent privacy experts have said this policy creates ‘serious privacy risks.’ And that it would give the government and anyone else who accesses this information a comprehensive, 360-degree view into the movements and habits of individual New Yorkers.” A TLC spokesman told The Washington Post that the information request is “nothing new” as pickup time and location data have been collected from yellow cabs since 2007 and green cabs since 2012. “New York City doesn’t need this data, and they’ve shown in the past that they cannot prevent it from becoming public,” Uber concluded in its letter.
Uber aims to halt NYC’s demands for passenger data
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