Essential phones founder Andy Rubin apologises for customers' data leak
31 Aug 2017
Essential phones founder Andy Rubin has apologised in his blogpost for errors made in the phone's customer care function, which caused the personal information of around 70 customers being shared with an email group of other customers.
According to a Reddit thread in which the fault was stated, Reddit users who had pre-booked the new Essential phone were asked to share their photo ID for shipping purposes.
A photo ID, which had a photograph, address and signature was shared with a group of customers to whom the email was sent. Even as the Redditors complained of a possible phishing scam, Andy Rubin apologised for the misconfigured account and said that the account had been disabled.
He further offered a year of LifeLock, an identity theft protection service, to the customers who have were affected by the error. Rubin has focused on building an infrastructure for customer care.
Even as Rubin described the episode as a "humbling and humiliating" experience, there was no mention of the ways in which Essential will to take care of shipping.
The Essential PH-I comes carries a price tag of $649 and will be available in Black Moon, Stellar Grey, Pure White and Ocean Depths. The phone is said to be made of Titanium, and will not get scratched, dented or bent, the company claims.
According to commentators, the issue might have originated from a Google group, which allowed a number of Essential customers to learn the email addresses of other customers. Or, it might be possible that hackers might have gained access to Essential's customer database.
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