How Uber Can Benefit from Using Tokenization Services

As the leading rideshare app, Uber has become a globally recognized company. Currently, 93 million customers and 3.5 million drivers use this growing rideshare platform. Like any company that stores sensitive data, Uber is susceptible to cybersecurity threats. Keep reading to discover how this rideshare giant can benefit from using tokenization to protect their customers’ data.    

About Uber 

Established in 2009, Uber is a ridesharing company based in San Francisco, California. This tech giant operates in more than 900 metropolitan areas across the globe. Uber is a platform that allows drivers and riders to connect for rides, food pickups, and deliveries. Drivers use the app, which enables them to accept riders from a nearby location. Riders use the app to request rides or food deliveries. The secret sauce of this platform is that everything is all managed and operated in the Uber app.

This includes: 

• Creating free accounts 
• Finding drivers and riders 
• Accepting or canceling requests 
• Receiving real-time updates for arrival 
• Rating drivers and riders 
• Sending and receiving payments 
• Giving tips to drivers 

What Type of Data Does Uber Store? 

As a rideshare app, Uber stores various sensitive data for drivers and riders.  

Data from drivers include: 

• Names 
• Driver’s license numbers 
• Email addresses 
• Mailing addresses 
• Phone numbers 
• Credit card numbers 
• Bank account numbers 
• Billing country 
• Social Security numbers 
• Birthdates 
• Trip history location 
• GPS location 
• Names and addresses of saved places 
• Vehicle registration and licensing information 

Data from riders include: 

• Names 
• Email addresses 
• Mailing addresses 
• Phone numbers 
• Credit card numbers 
• Bank account numbers 
• Social Security numbers 
• Birthdates 
• GPS location 

Data Breaches 

Data breaches are a constant issue for today’s businesses and consumers. In May 2014, an intruder gained access to Uber drivers’ sensitive data. Specifically, the first cyberattack included over 100,000 names and drivers license numbers from drivers. Then, Uber had a more significant breach in Fall 2016. Bloomberg News reported that hackers stole data from around 57 million drivers and riders and personal information from 7 million riders. Like other breaches, the two cyberattacks eroded customers’ trust in Uber as people were concerned about the security and privacy of their personal information.              

How Tokenization Can Help Ridesharing Companies 

While there is no 100 percent foolproof method to prevent cyberattacks, ridesharing companies can implement holistic security solutions that protect and secure their sensitive data from theft. How is this possible? One solution is tokenization, which replaces the original data with a randomly generated set of numbers called a token. These tokens act as placeholders for the original data, which is stored in a secure token vault. Unlike encrypted data, tokens cannot be reverse-engineered by hackers. Thus, if a company suffers from a breach, cybercriminals are left with only tokens that do not have any real value. Without any valuable data, hackers will not compromise or steal data from the company. 

By using tokenization services, companies such as Uber can prevent cybercriminals from compromising their customers’ personal information. This can avoid lawsuits, hefty penalties, brand reputation loss, and losing loyal customers (drivers and riders). Indeed, ridesharing companies have an important duty to protect customers’ personal information and location. If privacy and security are compromised, this will have a devastating effect on everyone involved – the company, riders, and drivers.   

Further, Uber could benefit from the additional flexibility and functionality TokenEx provides for payment security and fraud mitigation. By protecting its payment data via a token service provider such as TokenEx, Uber can work with its desired combination of gateways and processors without restrictions. It can also increase acceptance rates and enhance the payment experience for customers by leveraging features such as Network Tokens, Account Updater, 3-D Secure, and fraud prevention from Kount. 

Secure Your Sensitive Data with TokenEx  

If your company handles sensitive data, data security and data protection must be a top priority. Ridesharing platforms store customers’ personal information all in one convenient location. However, this also makes these platforms susceptible to cyberattacks, such as fraud and data breaches. To protect and secure your data, it’s recommended to work with a reputable tokenization provider as a part of your long-term security approach. At TokenEx, we are dedicated to protecting the world’s most sensitive data while maximizing business operations and reducing compliance. The cloud-based Data Protection platform is built to help organizations safely and compliantly collect, store, and send sensitive payment and personal data. Our customers enjoy 24/7 support, which helps answer commonly asked questions, manage client portal accounts, and address problems. Contact us today to learn more about our leading tokenization services designed to help protect and secure your customers’ data.