It was an über bad day for one driver who had her personal tax information, including her Social Security number, exposed due to what the drive on-demand company is calling a “bug.” When Uber drivers logged on to the Uber partner dashboard to check their own 1099 information for 2015, they instead received information relating to someone else: a Florida woman who also drives for the company.
The form in question was a federal form 1099-K, Merchant Card and Third Party Network Payments. That form is generally used to report transactions in which a payment card (such as a credit card or gift card) is accepted as payment or any transaction that is settled through a third-party payment network like PayPal.
So why do Uber drivers receive the form? They don’t receive a form W-2 because the company takes the position that they are not employees. They likewise don’t receive a form 1099-MISC because they receive the form 1099-K (you’re not supposed to receive both for the same money). Instead, Uber issues a form 1099-K which reports gross receipts – the amount you pay via your credit card – even though the driver only receives a percentage. It’s up to the driver to figure out the difference. The form 1099-K includes the same kind of information you might see on a form 1099-MISC: name and address, Social Security number, and gross compensation.
The driver’s 1099-K information remained on the Uber dashboard for a short time and it’s not known how many other drivers might have viewed it during that time. When made aware of the error, the company removed the tax tab on the dashboard altogether while the mistake was corrected. The tax tab will eventually reappear and tax information for drivers will be made available on the dashboard no later than the due date, February 1, 2016.
The goof raised fears about how many other drivers might have had their personal information exposed but an Uber spokesperson confirmed that it appeared that only one driver was affected. The company also confirmed that they had been in touch with the driver and will offer her credit monitoring and support.
An Uber spokesperson told Forbes about the mishap, “We take partner privacy very seriously and make every effort to ensure the security of personal information. Due to a bug in our system, one partner’s 1099 information was viewable by other drivers for a short period of time. The bug has been fixed and we’re deeply sorry. We are in contact with the driver whose information was affected.”
The incident comes just a few weeks after Uber agreed to pay a $20,000 fine to settle an investigation by the Attorney General’s Office in New York’s attorney general over its privacy practices. The company also agreed to additional privacy measures including limits on employee access to data. As part of the settlement, the company admitted that it failed to timely notify drivers who were victims of a security breach: the breach was discovered in September 2014 but was not disclosed to drivers or the public until five months later.
