Allegations are being made that Uber took liberties with iOS, by fingerprinting, i.e. using identifiers to recognise a device even after wiping.
Uber itself is pushing back on the allegations, stating that tracking is a common industry practice used to prevent fraud and account compromise.
While one can sympathise with the need for developers to address fraud. A line needs to be drawn where individuals or their locations should not be tracked once an app has been deleted.
To halt the activity, Uber engineers assigned a persistent identity to iPhones with a small piece of code, a practice called “fingerprinting.” Uber could then identify an iPhone and prevent itself from being fooled even after the device was erased of its contents. There was one problem: Fingerprinting iPhones broke Apple’s rules. Mr. Cook believed that wiping an iPhone should ensure that no trace of the owner’s identity remained on the device.