The 52-year-old is accused of trying to cover up a data breach in 2016 that exposed the details of 57 million Uber drivers and passengers, reports BBC.

The company has previously admitted to paying a group of hackers a $100,000 (£75,000) ransom to delete the data they had stolen.

Sullivan was fired in 2017 when the data breach was revealed.

The charges filed by the US Department of Justice said Sullivan had taken "deliberate steps" to stop the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) from finding out about the hack.

He is accused of approving the $100,000 payment to the hackers, which was made in bitcoin.

The payment was disguised as a "bug bounty" reward, used to pay cyber-security researchers who disclose vulnerabilities so they can be fixed.

The charges allege that he asked the hackers to sign non-disclosure agreements, falsely stating they had not stolen any Uber data.

"Silicon Valley is not the Wild West," said US lawyer David Anderson. "We expect good corporate citizenship. We expect prompt reporting of criminal conduct. We expect co-operation with our investigations. We will not tolerate corporate cover-ups."

A spokesman for Sullivan said he denied the charges.

"If not for Sullivan's and his team's efforts, it's likely that the individuals responsible for this incident never would have been identified at all," said spokesman Brad Williams.

Sullivan currently works as chief information security officer at cyber-security firm Cloudflare.

Uber chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi disclosed the data breach in 2017. The company eventually paid $148m to settle legal claims by all 50 US states and Washington DC.

Also read: Uber enlists over 5000 vehicles on its platform since resuming services in Dhaka