Portland's bike-rental service, Biketown, hit a bump Wednesday when users realized they could look up their fellow early adopters' by name and their Biketown ID numbers.

The ostensible bug was actually programmed in as a feature by software provider Social Bicycles, which imagined it as a potential social network. It would also expose a photo of the user, if they had uploaded one.

The oddity was first discovered by readers of the BikePortland blog, one of whom posted on the site about their findings.

But Biketown officials, in an email to members, acknowledged that some might not want that information exposed and apologized. The social search tool was turned off around noon Wednesday.

The program is offering a free month to those customers -- who were already eligible for a free month paid for by sponsorship from the Metro regional government -- and changing the exposed member IDs, which can also function as login credentials to use a bike. (A separate personal identification number would also be needed to rent a bike, and those records weren't compromised.)

-- Elliot Njus

enjus@oregonian.com

503-294-5034

@enjus