JUMP, Uber's Bike and Scooter Rental Business, Creates Privacy Controversy in L.A.

Laura Bliss reports:

The great scooter data wars of Los Angeles have officially begun. After months of skirmishing with the L.A. Department of Transportation over its collection of real-time trip data from dockless scooters and bikes, Uber filed a lawsuit and temporary restraining order against the city agency on Monday.

Bliss provides background on the developments that landed the city and the company at this moment in the history, not the least of which was the city's launch of a mobility data specification (MDS) in November of 2018. Both the California State Legislature, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) got involved over the past year. Bliss notes that despite Uber's history of privacy breaches, in this case people were concerned about the city's intentions with the data it would collect with the MDS.

As reported by Katie Pyzyk, LADOT notified Uber on Tuesday of this week that the city would suspend the company's operations as a result of the company's failure to comply with the MDS. The controversy and ensuing legal fallout also made the pages of the Wall Street Journal.