Uber broke Apple’s privacy rules in an attempt to catch Chinese fraudsters, leading CEO Tim Cook to threaten to remove the app from the App Store.
According to the New York Times, Uber accessed the Unique Device Identifier of iPhones to prevent a prevalent scam in China, in which scammers load up stolen credit cards to make fake rides before wiping the phone and repeating the process.
Uber broke Apple’s rules by marking iPhones with digital ID tags that would remain after users had deleted the Uber app and wiped the phone. Uber also geofenced Apple’s headquarters in an attempt to hide the company’s actions.
In a meeting with Tim Cook, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick was told that if the company did not remove the fingerprinting feature from its app, Apple would remove the app from its store.
This was not the first time the controversial taxi app had used this method to hide its actions; in 2014 Uber used a similar code to hide its activities from government officials in cities where it was prohibited.
Uber have been at the forefront of several scandals of late, with Travis Kalanick vowing to make changes to his leadership style.