During COVID-19, Uber has been providing user data to whom?

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, officials at Uber knew that they had significant sources of information about who people had been in contact with, something that could be very helpful for contact tracing efforts. That’s why they decided to fast-track a project that would allow health officials to request access to user data.

According to Reuters, Uber had started working on the idea in 2019 following a measles outbreak in the U.S. Active for several months now, the portal has seen 560 requests for COVID-19-related data from around the world, 158 of which originated from U.S. officials. Uber reports that its turnaround time for requests is only a few hours.

“Our timing ended up being beneficial in that it allowed us to get ahead before COVID started ramping up globally,” said Mike Sullivan, chief of global law enforcement for Uber.