Spangenberg, 45, is suing Uber for age discrimination and for whistleblower retaliation.

In a statement, Uber said it maintains strict policies to protect customer data and comply with legal proceedings.

"Some teams have never had access to this information", he said.

Despite promises of new policies that would prohibit future breaches, former employees say Uber is allowing lax security practices to continue.

Others told Reveal that employees are only required to agree to not abuse the tracking system, but a promise is only good if you keep it. In 2014, Buzzfeed revealed the existence of the "God View" tool, after Uber's NY general manager discussed using it to track a reporter's journey.

"Much of the information is out of date and doesn't accurately reflect the state of our practices today", Flynn wrote, though he did acknowledge that Uber, "like every fast-growing company", hasn't "always gotten everything ideal". Before that, he worked at a variety of companies in information security roles, including Zynga, Pearl.com, social network Tagged and now as founder of tech consultancy Gordius Systems. The company stored driver and employee information in an insecure manner, he says, while it operated a vulnerability management policy which allowed data to be stored that way if the company deemed there to be a "legitimate business purpose" for doing so.

According to court filings Uber fired him for violating a code of conduct, although it adds that the company has "been unable to articulate any provision it contends Spangenberg actually violated".

Reporting on Spangenberg's claims follows recent changes to Uber's app that effectively require users to give Uber permission to track their location when the app is running in the background of a user's phone, according to The Verge.

After joining the small security team in March, 2015, Spangenberg attempted to patch these weaknesses, and "frequently objected to what he believed were reckless and illegal practices", Reveal reports.

In his declaration, Spangenberg says he took "extreme caution" to retain documents that fell under a litigation hold, his bosses at Uber had a different approach. During government raids of foreign Uber offices, he said the company remotely encrypted its computers to prevent authorities from gathering information.

An Uber whistleblower claims he was sacked from the firm after revealing that employees at the taxi industry disruptor had regularly used the firm's "God view" technology to spy on policians, celebrities and former partners.

The company confirmed that "fewer than 10" employees had been fired for abused the "God View" feature, which is now renamed "Heaven View". Access is granted to specific types of data based on an employee's role. If a rider requests a refund, an authorized customer support representative would access to data needed to credit that rider's account.