What just happened? Uber has been fined €824.99 million (about $966 million) for allowing automated systems to suspend European drivers without adequate notice or meaningful human review. The penalty is the second-largest imposed under the EU's General Data Protection Regulation, beaten only by Meta's €1.2 billion 2023 fine, though Uber has already confirmed that it will appeal.
The Dutch Data Protection Authority found that between 2018 and 2022, Uber's systems temporarily blocked drivers suspected of fraud, including those flagged for allegedly taking unnecessary detours to increase fares or accepting trips they did not intend to complete.
Low customer ratings could also trigger temporary or permanent deactivation. Regulators concluded that these were solely automated decisions because no person participated in the decision-making process, according to the official findings.
Article 22 of the GDPR protects people from decisions based entirely on automated processing when the outcome has a significant legal or personal effect. A suspended Uber driver cannot accept journeys or earn money through the platform, placing deactivation squarely within that category, the regulator said.
Uber also allegedly failed to explain the automated process adequately to affected drivers.
The investigation came from a collective complaint submitted to France's CNIL in 2020 by human-rights organization La Ligue des droits de l'Homme, representing more than 170 drivers.
The Dutch authority handled the case because Uber's principal European establishment is in Amsterdam, while the French regulator assisted under the GDPR's cross-border cooperation system.
Unsurprisingly, Uber is disputing several of the findings. The company says fraud-related suspensions were generally brief, permanent deactivations were never made without human review, and affected drivers could appeal.
It also noted that only 126 European drivers lost access because of low ratings in 2021. Uber describes the examined policies as historical and says its current process incorporates human reviews and stronger safeguards, Reuters reports.
The new sanction follows two earlier penalties arising from the same wider complaint. Dutch regulators fined Uber €10 million ($11.6 million) in 2023 for insufficiently informing drivers and €290 million ($338.2 million) in 2024 over transfers of European driver data to the United States. Only Meta's €1.2 billion GDPR fine from 2023 is larger than this week's penalty.
Uber hit with near-$1 billion fine after algorithms suspended drivers without human review
