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from the town-planning-or-real-time-tracking dept.
Submitted via IRC for Fnord666
Uber sues Los Angeles to keep scooter location data private
Los Angeles wants a peek at the location data collected by the Uber scooters in its city. The company, better known for its ride-hailing service, doesn't want to give up the information, and is taking legal action to keep the data private.
On Monday, Uber filed a lawsuit against Los Angeles after months of refusing to give the Department of Transportation access to its scooter location data. In September 2018, LADOT instituted a requirement for all scooter companies to provide location data on the vehicles. The city said it was for city planning purposes.
Los Angeles' "Mobility Data Specification" plan represents one way local governments are trying to wrestle with the impact of technology companies. It's caught on in other cities such as Seattle; Austin, Texas; and Louisville, Kentucky because they don't want to be caught flat-footed the same way they did when ride-hailing companies first arrived and caused traffic headaches. But the request for real-time location data on scooters is a step too far, raising serious privacy concerns, Uber argued.
"Independent privacy experts have clearly and repeatedly asserted that a customer's geolocation is personally identifiable information, and -- consistent with a recent legal opinion by the California legislative counsel -- we believe that LADOT's requirements to share sensitive on-trip data compromises our customers' expectations of data privacy and security," an Uber spokesperson said. "Therefore, we had no choice but to pursue a legal challenge, and we sincerely hope to arrive at a solution that allows us to provide reasonable data and work constructively with the City of Los Angeles while protecting the privacy of our riders."
[...] "Given that we seem to have exhausted all other avenues to find a compromise solution, tomorrow we will file a lawsuit and seek a temporary restraining order in the Los Angeles Superior Court, so that a judge will hear these concerns and prevent the Los Angeles Department of Transportation from suspending our permit to operate," Uber's director of public affairs Colin Tooze said in a letter to LADOT on Monday.
LADOT's requests for location data have also faced criticism from privacy advocates like the Center for Democracy and Technology, as well as the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by nitehawk214 on Tuesday October 29 2019, @06:03PM (1 child)
Sues to keep data private... immediately sells data to the first company willing to pay enough.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 5, Informative) by ikanreed on Tuesday October 29 2019, @07:19PM
That's the Facebook strategy.
They could also do the Google strategy of hoarding as much user data as possible and then pinky-swear that their algorithm takes it into account when hooking up with advertisers.
I like the consistency of users being screwed though. It's nice to have something you can count on, you know?