Josh Edelson / AP Images for Lyft
- Lyft is investigating whether employees violated its guidelines and accessed customer data on their former and current partners and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
- The investigation follows a post on an anonymous blog site by someone who supposedly worked at Lyft who allegedly witnessed the abuses.
- The allegations are reminiscent of a Uber employee’s use of that company’s so-called God View tool to track a reporter’s movements.
Lyft is investigating whether its employees illegitimately accessed customer data — including that of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Hollywood actresses, and the employees’ current and former romantic partners, a company representative said Thursday.
Such abuses, detailed in a post made on the anonymous discussion app Blind earlier in the day, would be in violation of the company’s policies, the representative said in an emailed statement. But they hadn’t been previously reported to Lyft’s legal or executive teams, according to the representative.
“We are conducting an investigation into the matter,” the representative said in the statement.
The investigation comes in response to a post made by someone claiming to have worked at the app-based taxi company. According to the post, which was first reported by The Information, other employees looked up information about their “exes” and examined ride records for their “significant other” to see if they went where they said they were going. Other employees gleaned Zuckerberg’s phone number as well as personal information Lyft had about porn stars and actresses, according to the post.
“This just feels irresponsible to me at a level I can’t tolerate,” the supposed employee said in the Blind post. “I’ve tried to change from within, my hope is that this post will bring about changes need[ed] to protect our passengers and drivers.”
Lyft requires its employees to be trained in data privacy, the company representative said in the statement. It also logs access to its customer records and can trace such access to particular employees, the representative said.
“The specific allegations in this post would be a violation of Lyft’s policies and a cause for termination,” the representative said.
In 2014, an employee at Lyft-archrival Uber used the company’s so-called “God View” tool to track a BuzzFeed reporter. The company later promised to discontinue use of the tool.
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