Oxbykes customer data that were treated with “extremely urgency”

A bicycle rental company that accidentally provided customer data in his mobile app dealt with the matter “with the greatest urgency”.

A user of Oxbykes who runs their own bicycle fleet for rent and sale in Oxford, Cambridge and London said that on May 13th they accidentally granted access to the administrative level to its database.

Screenshots that the BBC showed from the customer – who asked to remain anonymously – indicate confidential data including names, contact details and ordering.

Oxbykes said that the security error had been solved and that potentially affected customers would be contacted.

Oxbykes has 25 depots in Oxford, 14 in Cambridge and three in London.

It immediately provides bicycles for the collection after purchase.

The user said they met the mistake when they tried to contact the support team after fighting a bike that they had rented.

They said the data were found in the mobile app via a button and “accessible last week”.

The customer added that on Sunday he received a personal WhatsApp message from the Oxbykes founder Louis Wright, in which he explained and applied for the mistake not to have published any confidential information.

Tom Widgery, CEO von Oxbykes, answered a comment on Wednesday when asked by BBC.

He said that the company was “made aware today that a very limited selection of customer data may have been accessed by a small number of customers due to a previously dissolved security inheritance”.

“We treat this matter with the greatest urgency and are currently talking to our lawyers to understand the full effects of the situation,” he said.

“We have already taken steps to patch the security error and are working on understanding the extent of a data load.

“We also report the incident to the information commissioner's office and prepare for contacting customers that may be directly affected.”