On August 15, 2017, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that it had reached an agreement with Uber Technologies to settle allegations that the ride-sharing company had deceived consumers by failing to live up to its privacy and data security promises.¹ Specifically, the FTC levied two deception counts against Uber: (1) that the company had failed to consistently monitor and audit internal access to consumers’ personal information, despite public promises to do so; and (2) that the company had failed to provide reasonable security for consumers’ personal information stored in its databases, despite its security promises. Under the resulting proposed consent order, Uber will be prohibited from misrepresenting how it monitors or audits internal access to consumers’ personal information and how it protects and secures that data. Uber will also be required to implement a comprehensive privacy program that will be subject to independent biennial audits for the next 20 years, and will need to comply with the standard set of consent order recordkeeping and compliance reporting and monitoring requirements.
Continue Reading Key New Takeaways from Uber’s Privacy and Data Security Settlement with the FTC