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Ola Accidentally Revealed Private Customer Details To Woman Who Booked A Cab

Ola Accidentally Revealed Private Customer Details To Woman Who Booked A Cab
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On August 8, when Chennai-based freelance content writer Swapnil Midha used an Ola Cab for a long-distance ride, she had no inkling about what was to follow. Over next three weeks, she kept getting cryptic messages from the popular cab service at all hours.

"I received a few garbled texts from 'VM-OLACAB' that I didn't think much of, and ignored. These messages were alpha-numeric with hashtags and made no sense to me whatsoever. I assumed that there was some system error — but I did not anticipate the sleep deprivation that followed," wrote Midha in an irate Facebook post on August 29 that was was widely shared.

@Olacabs ive received over 80 texts from ola that are other people's bookings. Complained 5 times but no solution. pic.twitter.com/vRwPyBd2bH

— Swapnil Midha (@SwapnilMidha) August 14, 2015

@ola_supports did you miss my calls and emails too? Brb @Olacabs gotta go find all the sleep you stole from me.

— Swapnil Midha (@SwapnilMidha) August 29, 2015

Midha found out that what Ola was sharing with her, throughout the day and night, were the confirmation messages of other customers when they made a booking in Bengaluru. "Hidden within the hashtags, I found mobile numbers, names and addresses of hundreds of people," wrote Midha.

"It's lucky I'm not a psychopath roaming the streets of Bengaluru, waiting to get my hands on people's personal information and knowing when they are home and when they are not, isn't it," added Midha.

Midha tweeted to Ola, wrote to them on Facebook, sent more emails, and "tried to reason with more people at their call centre". She even began calling the customers themselves to tell them that she was receiving their booking and all of their private details. "They were all shocked and promised to complain to Ola. I will never know if they really did," wrote Midha.

Finally, after weeks of trying to get in touch with them, Ola has fixed the problem.

@ola_supports@Olacabs thanks for fixing this after 3 weeks of desperate requests. I havent answered calls as I have other commitments.

— Swapnil Midha (@SwapnilMidha) August 30, 2015

@ola_supports@Olacabs I have emailed you when I can be reached tomorrow. Please call me then. Thanks.

— Swapnil Midha (@SwapnilMidha) August 30, 2015

"The thing is, I wasn't looking for the media attention at all! I just wanted Ola to fix the issue," Midha told HuffPost India.

One of the interesting things about the errors, though, is that it is not a technical, but a manual error. "Someone has put in our customer Midha's number instead of a driver's number in the system. Hence, all the messages for picking up customers went to her, instead of the driver," an Ola Cabs spokesperson told HuffPost India.

"We value the privacy of our users and will continue to take utmost care in terms of data security on the Ola platform," he added.

Ola Cabs Leaked Over 100 Customers' Personal Data To Me and They Don't CarePlease share if you live in Bangalore! In...

Posted by Swapnil Midha on Saturday, 29 August 2015

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.