Uber hit with nearly $1B fine over automated driver suspensions

The Dutch Data Protection Authority is fining Uber €825 million (around $966 million) — the second-largest penalty issued so far under Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation, according to Reuters. The regulator investigated complaints that Uber deactivated driver accounts through an automated process without sufficient warning or human oversight. “A computer should not make decisions on its own that have [such] major consequences,” deputy chair Monique Verdier said, adding that the company had “committed serious infringements.”

Uber disputes the characterization, arguing that most suspensions are brief, that no permanent deactivations happen without human review, and that drivers can appeal. Dutch regulators say some drivers were permanently deactivated without human review — a claim Uber disputes. “We strongly disagree with this decision and disproportionate fine,” an Uber spokesperson told Reuters, and the company said it will appeal.

The case traces back to Brahim Ben Ali, a former Uber driver in France whose account was deactivated in 2019. He collected testimonies from 170 other Uber drivers and brought his complaint to the Netherlands, where Uber’s European headquarters are located, with help from PersonalData.io, a Swiss digital-rights nonprofit. Founder Paul-Olivier Dehaye said a driver “can complete a thousand journeys with satisfied passengers, but if just one person reports a very serious problem, the consequences can be enormous.” Dehaye said this is the third fine the Dutch regulator has levied on Uber, following a €290 million fine over its handling of driver data and a €10 million fine over related issues — and that all three originate from complaints by the same group of drivers. He is also starting a company called StartClaims to support a class-action suit and other regulatory action, first against Uber and eventually other gig-economy and adtech cases.

The ruling has drawn pushback from commentators skeptical of its framing. Daring Fireball’s John Gruber argued the fine effectively makes it “unlawful in the EU for Uber to monitor its drivers for pulling scams against customers, or just never picking riders up, leaving them stranded,” and objected to Verdier blaming “a computer” for the decisions, comparing it to blaming “the time clock” when a company fires a habitually late employee. Dehaye countered that Gruber “misses the point”: Uber can use humans to punish drivers who scam customers, he said, but then has to take responsibility for that decision-making rather than treating itself as a neutral marketplace.

Why it matters

The fine sharpens a live question for any platform that automates high-stakes decisions about workers: regulators are drawing a line between using software to flag problems and letting software make the final call, and companies that blur that line face billion-dollar exposure.