Uber Decided It Won't Track You...As Much

Ride-sharing company Uber is killing a tracking feature that some have criticized as invasive, the company's security chief John Sullivan told Reuters on Tuesday.

The feature, which was rolled out in December, let users choose whether they wanted location tracking to be always on or always off. The on option let the ride-sharing service track users' locations for five minutes after they arrived at destinations and leave vehicles. The tracking continued even when the app wasn't pulled up on the user's smartphone screen. 

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Many Uber users had unwittingly opted into the feature, as there was only one opportunity presented to opt out.

Uber claimed the extended location tracking would be used to "improve pickups, drop-offs, customer service, and to enhance safety."

Sullivan told Reuters the feature was never fully implemented for iPhone users and had already been suspended for Android users. But sometime this week, the company will fully restore the option to share location data only when using the app.

The company may choose to reimplement the same level of tracking sometime in the future.