Uber faces €825 million Dutch fine over automated driver deactivations

The Dutch Data Protection Authority has fined Uber €825 million (about $966 million) for using automated systems to deactivate driver accounts across Europe without adequate human review. The penalty stems from a copy of the decision, dated Aug. 17, that has not yet been made public.

The penalty is the second-largest ever issued under the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, trailing only the €1.2 billion levied against Meta Platforms in 2023.

Between 2020 and 2022, the regulator found, Uber deactivated drivers through solely automated decisions that carried significant consequences for their livelihoods, without telling them how the systems worked. That breaches GDPR’s limits on fully automated decision-making and its requirement that people be informed about how their data is used.

The case began with a complaint in France but fell to the Dutch authority because Uber’s European headquarters are in the Netherlands.

Uber disputes the scale of the problem. The company said only 126 drivers in Europe were permanently deactivated in 2021 over low customer ratings, that its deactivations involved human review, and that it will appeal a fine it calls disproportionate.

Much rests on that appeal. The figure comes from a decision that has not been formally published, and the amount could change before it is enforced. If it stands, the penalty would rank among the toughest regulatory responses yet to algorithmic management in the gig economy, where drivers and couriers are routinely hired, ranked and dismissed by software.