Uber Transparency

Uber is widely known as a prominent rideshare app, but has faced several Public Relations issues in recent months and has suffered because of the actions of those in leadership at the company. A recent article published by Bloomberg, states that, "Hackers stole the personal data of 57 million customers and drivers from Uber Technologies Inc., a massive breach that the company concealed for more than a year. The ride-hailing firm ousted its chief security officer and one of his deputies for their roles in keeping the hack under wraps, which included a $100,000 payment to the attackers." Trying to conceal this information has proven to be a disastrous decision for the company.

Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber CEO

Dara Khosrowshahi, who took over as Chief Executive Officer in September, learned of the terrible decision and is doing everything he can to restore trust back in the company. The first thing that Dara did was fire those responsible for the incident and cover up and then he released all of the information to the public. The public has a right to know if their information was compromised and if the company ever wants to rebound from this they need to let their customers know that their data is in safe and responsible hands.

The Public Relations connection in this case is extremely important. The CEO had a very important and difficult choice to make. When he learned of the hack and breach of data, he had the opportunity to remain silent and keep the incident from the public. The other option was to tell the public, knowing that the disclosure would harm the company's reputation even more and push the company further down the competitive ladder. The CEO decided to take the more difficult, but morally sound choice and tell the public. Transparency is an important part of public relations and even though this was a very unfortunate incident, coming clean and informing the public was the right thing to do. Hopefully, the public will see this decision as a responsible one and a turn in a different direction.