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Minnesota Sen. Al Franken Seeks Answers About Uber's Privacy Policies

The senator wrote a sharply phrased letter that asks Uber probing questions and voices alarm about reports suggesting "a troubling disregard for customers' privacy."

The app-based taxi-like transportation service Uber has drawn intense scrutiny in recent days on privacy grounds -- including alleged misuse of its customer data and comments made by an executive about digging into the personal lives of journalists seen as critical.

Now U.S. Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., has weighed in with a sharply phrased letter that asks Uber probing questions and voices alarm about reports suggesting "a troubling disregard for customers' privacy, including the need to protect their sensitive geolocation data."

Some of Uber's business practices have drawn criticism for months. But Franken said in a telephone interview Thursday that the San Francisco company was "not on my radar screen" until recent uproar over the comments made by Emil Michael, a top lieutenant to Uber CEO Travis Kalanick.

In a widely publicized BuzzFeed report, Michael is reported to have said he considered assembling a $1 million Uber investigative unit to delve into the lives of certain problematic journalists -- notably Sarah Lacey, founder and editor of the tech-news site Pando Daily, and a frequent Uber critic.

"This begs a lot of questions," Franken said. "Was this a rogue executive for Uber who had a bad moment? Or is this something they have thought of before?"

Franken said he fears the worst. This "sounded like a shot across the bow to journalists: 'We'll track you if you go someplace we might not want you to go, we might let that out.'

"That seemed to be the implication," Franken went on, "and nothing I've heard thus far has made me think differently, and that is obviously not kosher -- It is very disturbing."

Kalanick and Michael have since furiously backpedaled and apologized about this -- but the Uber controversy has more recently expanded to include allegations that the service has mishandled the data it continually compiles on customer locations and movements.

Specifically, BuzzFeed has reported that Uber is launching an investigation of its New York manager for allegedly tracking a reporters' movements without permission. This has focused scrutiny on an Uber-termed "God View" capability giving some at the company the ability to exhaustively monitor its customers' movements based on locations if its cars.

Services such as Uber and archrival Lyft are app-centric -- meaning customers request transport via their GPS-enabled phone screens. Location data -- including that of customers waiting for rides, the vehicles en route for them, and where the cars go once they've picked up the users -- is integral to how the services operate.

Uber recently made public its once-private privacy policy and hired a former IBM chief privacy officer to review its data procedures.

Uber did not respond to a request for comment on the content of Franken's letter, but the senator said the company has assured him it will answer his questions in due time.

Franken said Uber is "a good service with a very useful function." Further, Minnesota's junior U.S. senator acknowledged the company clearly "needs to know your geolocation" in order to operate properly.

But, he added in the phone interview: "This begs the question of how they use that data. Who has access to that" and for what purpose?

"In the broadest sense, I think people have the right to privacy, and have a right to have control over data that is taken about them, with whom it is shared, how it is accessed," said Franken, who chairs a U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law.

Uber and Lyft have proven controversial in the Twin Cities, but for other reasons. Here and in other U.S. metro areas, the services have faced stiff opposition from traditional taxi services. St. Paul and Minneapolis have struggled with how to accommodate the likes of Uber and Lyft alongside established taxi firms.

©2014 the Pioneer Press (St. Paul, Minn.)