Former Employees Say Lyft Spied on Passengers

Software allegedly used to view personal contact info and ride history.

Lyft staffers have been abusing customer insight software to view the personal contact info and ride history of people who use the app, according to former employees of the company. And the technology may even have been used to spy on ex-lovers. One source told TechCrunch that widespread access to the company’s backend let staffers “see pretty much everything including feedback, and yes, pick up and drop off coordinates.” A source said that data insight tools logs all usage, so staff members were warned to use it carefully, for example, not repeatedly searching for the same person. But enforcement of who used the insight tools was weak, so team members abused it, the whistleblowers claim. A former staffer told TechCrunch that other employees used Lyft’s backend software to look up “ex-lovers, check where their significant others were riding and to stalk people they found attractive who shared a Lyft Line with them.” The technology could be used to use it to look up phone numbers of celebrities.

The allegations follow a 2014 scandal involving Uber, after Buzzfeed broke the news that the ride-sharing serviced used a system called “God View” that let staffers see details about riders and their trips.

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