Editors' pick: Originally published March 3.

Uber employees say the company used a secret program for clandestine snooping that was used to circumvent authorities that did not want the company operating in their region.

Uber's VTOS, or violation of terms of service program, had a snooping tool known as Greyball, according to Uber employees who talked to the New York Times.

According to the unidentified workers, Greyball played into a situation where Uber was violating local government regulations, yet Uber considered investigators' efforts to track the company to be violations of Uber policies.

How prevalent Greyball's use really was remains to be seen, but the news comes after a series of events that led Uber CEO Travis Kalanick publicly to apologize to a driver and admit that he needs leadership help.

Accusations of sexual harassment and bullying, the departure of a key executive due to a prior harassment claim and Kalanick's highly publicized argument with a driver have combined with ongoing customer and driver complaints to create a maelstrom of bad publicity for the ride-sharing company. The developments have led some to wonder if Kalanick will be forced to step down.

In addition, on Friday Uber product and growth vice-president Ed Baker announced his resignation, according to Recode, leaving marketplace head Daniel Gref to take over at least for now.

Recode and Uber board member Arianna Huffington both received identical anonymous emails claiming that Baker had been seen "making out" at a company event three years ago, although there were no allegations of sexual harassment and "the encounter was apparently consensual," Recode reported.

Baker announced his departure in an email. "I have always wanted to apply my experience in technology and growth to the public sector. And now seems like the right moment to get involved," he said.

Greyball allegedly allowed Uber to manipulate potential customers' apps to create the appearance of phantom cars and cancel the arrival of real ones when customer data indicated a connection to law enforcement or other unwanted parties.

"Greyballing" a customer essentially meant providing them with bogus data.

Greyball could be in a grey area legally.

"Uber's business model is regulatory arbitrage," cybersecurity specialist Comodo's vice-president and principal scientist Phillip Hallam-Baker told TheStreet.

"Now that the existence of Greyball is known, municipalities can certainly pass ordinances to make it illegal," Hallam-Baker said. "More relevant, however, is that they can develop policing strategies to reduce its effectiveness."

The tool could create geofences around certain areas Uber wished to avoid servicing, like law enforcement agencies.

The program also allowed Uber to use data like credit card numbers to link potential clients to agencies that could be investigating the company.

Agency employees learned of Greyball and tried to circumvent it by purchasing the modern equivalent of burner cell phones.

Uber employees allegedly also perused people's social media profiles to identify law enforcement and "greyball" them by preventing them from obtaining actual rides or by actually having drivers end rides prematurely.

Uber's legal team purportedly approved the use of Greyball, according to the report.

In a statement, Uber said, "This program denies ride requests to users who are violating our terms of service - whether that's people aiming to physically harm drivers, competitors looking to disrupt our operations, or opponents who collude with officials on secret 'stings' meant to entrap drivers," the Times reported.