Uber’s C.E.O., Travis Kalanick, has recently risked having the Uber app removed from the Apple App Store after it was discovered that Uber had been secretly identifying and tagging iPhones long after the app had been deleted from one’s phone— violating Apple’s privacy guidelines.

This illegal activity began back in 2014 after Uber had to deal with fraud problems in China, where stolen phones were used to create dozens of fake email addresses in order to sign up for new Uber rider accounts, where Uber employees would then request rides from themselves and accept them, allowing drivers to earn a lot more money thanks to Uber’s incentives at the time.

In order to halt this activity, “Uber engineers assigned a persistent identity to iPhones with a small piece of code, a practice called ‘fingerprinting.’ Uber could then identify an iPhone and prevent itself from being fooled even after the device was erased of its contents.” The only problem with this practice is that it is in violation of Apple’s privacy guidelines, and Uber was aware of that and still broke their rules.

Mr. Kalanick’s engineers were asked to “geofence” Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, California which allowed Uber to “obfuscate its code for people within that geofenced area, essentially drawing a digital lasso around those it wanted to keep in the dark. Apple employees at its headquarters were not able to see Uber’s fingerprinting.”

Apple engineers outside of Cupertino managed to discover that Mr. Kalanick had deceived them for months as he directed his employees to do so, and when he visited Apple’s headquarters to meet with Timothy D. Cook who runs the iPhone maker, Mr. Cook demanded that Mr. Kalanick stop the trickery, or Uber’s app would be removed from the Apple App Store.

An Uber spokesman declined an interview with the New York Times regarding the matter, as did Apple who declined to comment on the meeting with Mr. Cook. Having Uber’s app pulled from Apple’s App Store would potentially do serious damage towards Uber’s business as they would lose access to millions of iPhone users who would no longer be able to download the app on their phone.

Mr. Kalanick’s risky business ethics may have given him negative attention but no one can disregard the fact that those risks have helped him create a new transportation industry, as Uber has now spread across more than 70 countries gaining a valuation of approximately $70 billion. Nonetheless, some of the risks Mr. Kalanick has taken in order to get to where he wants to go have not always been supported by fellow employees or investors. Mark Cuban, billionaire and Dallas Mavericks owners said “Travis’s biggest weakness is that he will run through a wall to accomplish his goals. That’s the best way to describe him,” referring to Mr. Kalanick’s extenuating drive for success.

But, over the past few months the company has had to deal with allegations of a workplace environment where managers routinely verbally, physically, and sometimes even sexually crossed the line with some of their employees. Mr. Kalanick’s recent shouting match with an Uber driver in February was leaked online, further damaging Mr. Kalanick’s falling reputation. And now, with recent documents surfacing revealing Mr. Kalanick’s unethical practices, Uber can expect business to be affected even more so as the public becomes aware of his business ethics.