Over 170,000 Filipinos affected by Uber data breach

Manila, Dec 15 (IANS) Over 170,000 Filipino drivers and passengers were affected by global ride-sharing app Uber's massive data breach last year, authorities said on Friday.

Philippines National Privacy Commission (NPC) Chairman Raymund Liboro said Uber Philippines informed that the exposure of the affected data subjects was limited to their registered name, e-mail address and phone number, reports Xinhua news agency.

The commission has summoned Uber officials "to appear before the commission to further explain their data processing operations, particularly the organisational, technical and physical security measures Uber Philippines is implementing to protect Filipino drivers and riders", Liboro said.

He said the NPC is "paying particular attention to the steps taken to ensure that in the future, data breaches of this magnitude will not be concealed from regulators and from affected data subjects."

Liboro warned that concealment of data breaches that involve sensitive personal information or data is a criminal offence.

Last month, Uber Philippines informed the NPC that Filipino Uber users were indeed among those exposed in the massive breach last year that affected 57 million Uber clients around the world.

In a letter to the NPC, Uber Philippines confirmed that personal information of Filipinos was exposed in the data breach that attacked Uber's "third party cloud-based storage accounts" in October 2016.

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has admitted that sensitive information had been illegally downloaded, including names, email addresses and mobile phone numbers of 57 million Uber users around the world, and the names and license numbers of 600,000 drivers in the US.

Uber has around 66,000 active vehicles/drivers in the Philippines.

(This story has not been edited by Social News XYZ staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)