Uber poaches Facebook’s chief security officer

Uber is hiring its first chief security officer away from Facebook as reports indicate that rider data is for sale on the black market.

The car-hailing service said it hired Facebook Chief Security Officer Joe Sullivan, who previously worked for the Justice Department, eBay and PayPal.

{mosads}“It’s no longer about traditional metrics for safe transportation or keeping our community’s data private and secure, but about how we lead efforts to redefine and strengthen physical and data security in the location-based world,” Uber CEO Travis Kalanick wrote in a blog post.

“Our goal is to redefine what it means to be a world-class, people-centric protector of privacy.”

Uber denies that its user information was breached, but hackers did gain access to a database of driver data last May.

Additionally, allegations of drivers raping or harassing passengers are popping up around the world. District attorneys in San Francisco and Los Angeles have filed lawsuits against the company, arguing its background checks do not weed out dangerous drivers.

“I had the good fortune to work at two amazing companies — eBay and Facebook — when they were growing rapidly,” Sullivan wrote in the blog post.

“I look forward to bringing the best practices that I’ve learned along the way to Uber and doing defining work in bridging the divide between the digital and physical worlds.”