MENLO PARK, CALIFORNIA — Apple gave Uber's iPhone app access to a secret backdoor that potentially allows the company to record a user's screen and access other personal information without his or her knowledge. <br /> <br />According to Business Insider, Uber does not mention the backdoor is any consumer-facing information included with their app. <br /> <br />Apple's backdoor is so powerful, it rarely allows third-party companies to access the feature. <br /> <br />Security researcher Will Strafach discovered the situation and told Business Insider, "granting such a sensitive entitlement to a third-party is unprecedented as far as I can tell, no other app developers have been able to convince Apple to grant them entitlements they've needed to let their apps utilize certain privileged system functionality." <br /> <br />There's no evidence that Uber used the special iPhone feature. Uber told Business Insider the code was not being used and was a leftover from an earlier version of its Apple Watch app. <br /> <br />A majority of iPhone apps use software to enable features like the camera or ApplePay known as "entitlements." <br /> <br />Many of these can be easily turned on by outside app creators. But certain entitlements are only used by Apple to allow optimal integration with the iPhone. <br /> <br />Uber's app was found to be the only app other than Apple's own apps granted access to the entitlement, Strafach said in an email to Business Insider. <br />Uber says the entitlement isn't being used, and it is working with Apple to remove the API completely from the app.
