Ask HN: Uber illegally tracking European users? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Uber illegally tracking European users?

3 pointsdevShark3 comments

Located in Europe. I uninstalled the Uber app from an iPhone (thus erasing the app and all its documents) and restarted the iPhone. I then went to the website and deleted the account entirely

I wanted to double check that Uber had properly deleted the account. I reinstalled the app, which opens on the sign up page, and clickd at the bottom "Find my account".

Suprise! (or not) Uber recalled exactly my account.

I tried to swap the sim and change the wifi, it still did the same.

The phone has no personalized ad enabled (so does not send an IDFA).

I deleted other apps from the same Team ID (Uber Eat).

The only legit way to "track" a device, as far as I know, is DeviceCheck's DCDevice. But this only stores 2 bits, certainly all the info Uber had.

It's painfully hard to escape BigTech's surveillance...

Hence my question: Is Uber illegally tracking devices, and if so anyone has ideas how?

No idea mate. I know the square root of bollocks-all about smartphones as don't do them. But I love your question. There's lots in there.

> Is Uber illegally tracking devices ?

"Is Uber..." Or is some entity that serves that "find my account function"?

"...illegally..." This is about Europe. But also when, because lots of of legislation hitting now or soon.

"...tracking devices" Tying account to device CPU, fingerprint, some cookie?" (a million ways to do that) or something else? Each might impact a different law like using GPS or SSIDs for position, versus storing something in memory?

My answer. Probably. Whatchyagonado?

How long did it take you to go from deleting the account on the website to reinstalling the app? From your account it seems like the two events might’ve been close together, you should allow for a few days and check back.

Send them a GDPR request for your data and another later on for its deletion. Be aware that legally they have thirty days to comply.

https://help.uber.com/riders/article/submit-a-privacy-inquir...

Yes, I did it in the same day.

But I am surprised that they are technically able to do that. My impression was that Apple had locked down this kind of things. Clearly not.

Any random ideas as to how they can technically fingerprint the device, and therefore how I could avoid it?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com