Controversial taxi company Uber has admitted that hackers stole personal details of 57m Uber drivers and passengers in 2016.

Its chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi said, in a blog post, that he had discovered that two people who did not work for Uber had "inappropriately accessed user data" late last year.

Uber stores its employee and customer data online in a service run by a third party which Mr Khosrowshahi said had been hacked.

Among the details stolen were those of 600,000 Uber drivers in the USA. Data obtained by the hackers included names, mobile phone numbers, email addresses and registration details of the cars used by its drivers.

News agency Bloomberg, which broke the story, said Uber had paid the hacker a ransom of $100,000 (about £75,000) to delete the stolen details and keep quiet about the data breach.

Uber (stock image)

Mr Khosrowshahi said he had no evidence that other data such as credit card or bank account number, trip details and dates of birth were also stolen.

He said in the post: "At the time of the incident, we took immediate steps to secure the data and shut down further unauthorized access by the individuals.

"We subsequently identified the individuals and obtained assurances that the downloaded data had been destroyed."

He added: "While we have not seen evidence of fraud or misuse tied to the incident, we are monitoring the affected accounts and have flagged them for additional fraud protection.

"None of this should have happened, and I will not make excuses for it.

"While I can't erase the past, I can commit on behalf of every Uber employee that we will learn from our mistakes."