Lyft head ‘open’ to considering all privacy steps

One of the heads of ride company Lyft says he is “open” to considering any options to increase people’s privacy, after new concern was raised on Capitol Hill.

“We’re open to listen to everything,” co-founder John Zimmer said on Bloomberg TV on Wednesday.

{mosads}“If you look at our company and our company’s values and the way we operate internally, we’ve always respected users’ privacy,” he added. “And over time as we’ve grown we’ve added more and more safeguards to those privacy policies internally.”

The interview comes a day after Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) criticized the company for its reportedly lax rules allowing many employees to track users’ locations throughout the course of the rides.

On Tuesday, Franken sent a letter to Lyft CEO Logran Green accusing executives of showing “inadequate regard” for people’s privacy. 

In recent weeks, the company has upgraded its policy, Zimmer said, to limit the number of people who can access information about someone’s ride.

“A customer service representative, for example, may need to access the user’s information if they’re asked if they’ve lost their phone in a car or they say: ‘Hey, can you check this last trip? I think it was miscalculated the way it was charged,’” he explained. “But there are other individuals in the company that don’t need access to that information. And we’ve made sure to review who has access and put additional limitations in place.”

“I think it’s a good conversation to be having and one that we’re open to working with him on,” he added.

Lyft and Uber — a main competitor — have come under increasing fire in recent weeks due to reports about the companies’ ability to track people’s location throughout the course of their ride.