As part of a national settlement, Mississippi will receive nearly three-quarters of $1 million from Uber.
The popular ride-sharing company will pay Mississippi $716,861 after reaching a settlement with each state totaling $148 million over its 2016 data breach, announced Attorney General Jim Hood.
Uber learned in November 2016 that hackers had gained access to some personal information that Uber maintains about its drivers, including drivers’ license information of approximately 600,000 drivers nationwide, and 1,230 drivers here in Mississippi.
The California-based company failed to address a data breach to its affected drivers for an entire year after becoming aware of the incident. The company was able to identify the hackers and ensure that they deleted the information. However, the breach triggered Mississippi data breach notification requirements, and Uber failed to report the breach until a year later.
“This settlement should send a message to hacked companies that it is in their best interest to notify impacted Mississippians according to state law,” General Hood said.
As part of the settlement, Uber has agreed in detail to strengthen its corporate governance and data security practices to help prevent a similar occurrence in the future. The settlement is subject to court approval.
The settlement between Mississippi and Uber requires the company to:
- Comply with Mississippi data breach and consumer protection law regarding protecting Mississippi residents’ personal information and notifying them in the event of a data breach concerning their personal information;
- Take precautions to protect any user data Uber stores on third-party platforms outside of Uber;
- Use strong password policies for its employees to gain access to the Uber network;
- Develop and implement a strong overall data security policy for all data that Uber collects about its users, including assessing potential risks to the security of the data and implementing any additional security measures beyond what Uber is doing to protect the data;
- Hire an outside qualified party to assess Uber’s data security efforts on a regular basis and draft a report with any recommended security improvements. Uber will implement any such security improvement recommendations; and
- Develop and implement a corporate integrity program to ensure that Uber employees can bring any ethics concerns they have about any other Uber employees to the company, and that it will be heard.
Additionally, a private class action is being litigated in California to address individual monetary claims, which is separate from this settlement.
