Uber fined £385k by ICO for THAT hack of 57m customers' deets The UK’s data watchdog has slapped a £385,000 penalty on app-not-driving-service baddie Uber for security weak spots that attackers exploited to expose the details of millions of customers. Two fiends accessed the data after snatching login credentials for Uber's AWS S3 data stores from the firm's GitHub code repo. The hack, …
I work out out as 14p per person.
14p per British user, circa £3.61 per Dutch user.
You could almost believe that the British government were a bunch of clueless patsies who'd been bought by US big data corporations. It'll be interesting to see how different national regulators apply GDPR rules.
"14p per British user, circa £3.61 per Dutch user. You could almost believe that the British government were a bunch of clueless patsies ..."
I'm somewhat surprised they didn't get closer to the maximum fine (it's probably due to the reporting not being mandatatory bit), but even if they had have imposed the maximum fine available, it wouldn't have pro-rated anywhere near to the Dutch one - the maximum fine available to the ICO was £500,000, which would have worked out at 18p/user. IIRC, the £500,000 maximum penalty is set by the previous European data protection directive.
Anything that makes Uber execs bleed is music to my ears.
Would that that were true, but it isn't. The fine will ultimately be paid by its customers; the taxi passengers. That is the big failing of fines for corporate misconduct - the company pays from its source of income, because that is the only money that it actually has. Even if it has £££ in the bank, that money came from those who bought its services or products.
Unfortunately.
Like the husband of the Chief Magistrate at Westminster Magistrates Court[1] who has given favourable rulings[2][3] in court cases against them?
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/aug/18/uber-judge-steps-aside
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jun/26/uber-case-licence-london
[3] http://www.localgovernmentlawyer.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=35993%3Aprosecution-of-uber-driver-dismissed-amid-claims-app-was-plying-for-hire&catid=61&Itemid=29
The fine will ultimately be paid by its customers; the taxi passengers
Not really. Uber can't just increase prices to compensate because they're already being squeezed by competitors. They're already suffering huge losses. If they could increase prices by x% with no loss of custom then they would have done so already. As a result of this fine Uber will actually have to report lower profits (or in their case higher losses)
I really think fines for corporate malfeasance should be paid out of the board of directors pension fund, if that runs out then from the board personally.
Otherwise it's just another business expense - and for the board it's bonuses all round, as usual.
"The fine will ultimately be paid by its customers; the taxi passengers."
As far as I know, they're already deliberately under-charging in order to build up their business, so they daren't raise prices until they've killed off all competition (be that other ride-sharing companies, traditional taxis, or public transport).
"Exactly - current estimates value Uber at $120 billion ... $120 billion? "
I know that the "value" of a company is based on what the analysts and share holder think the future profits will be, but in this case, one wonders if they will ever make a profit. The valuation is obscene and I suspect self-driving taxis are a lot further away than the investor/share holder think. It'd not surprise me in the least that the execs already have an exit strategy for when/if the company goes TITSUP and they all jump out with their golden parachutes while everyone else carries the can.
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