Uber Applied sciences has been hit by a report €290-million (R5.8-billion) high quality by the Dutch privateness watchdog for failing to abide by European safety requirements when it shipped swaths of delicate knowledge about its drivers to the US.
The Dutch Knowledge Safety Authority stated Uber was accumulating data of drivers from Europe, reminiscent of taxi licenses, location knowledge, and in some circumstances prison and medical knowledge, and retaining them on servers within the US.
The high quality is the very best penalty ever issued by the Dutch watchdog in opposition to any firm, a spokesman stated by e-mail. It’s additionally the largest high quality Uber obtained globally.
The ride-hailing service despatched the delicate knowledge to its US headquarters for over two years with out utilizing knowledge switch instruments aimed toward defending privateness, which meant the information was “insufficiently protected”, the watchdog stated on Monday. Uber ended the violation final 12 months, the company stated.
The high quality is “utterly unjustified”, stated Caspar Nixon, a spokesman for Uber, in response to e-mailed questions. Uber’s knowledge switch course of was compliant with European legal guidelines and the corporate will enchantment in opposition to the choice, Nixon stated.
Uber didn’t meet the necessities of European legal guidelines to “guarantee the extent of safety to the information with regard to transfers to the US. That could be very critical,” Aleid Wolfsen, the Dutch knowledge safety authority’s chairman, stated in an announcement.
Probe
The Dutch knowledge safety authority started its investigation on Uber after greater than 170 French drivers complained to a French human-rights curiosity group. The probe was dealt with by the Dutch company as Uber’s European headquarters is within the Netherlands.
That is the third penalty by the Dutch knowledge safety authority on Uber. It was beforehand fined for not offering enough transparency about how lengthy it retained knowledge from European drivers and to which international locations outdoors Europe this knowledge was forwarded. In 2018, it was penalised for not informing the Dutch watchdog a couple of knowledge breach in time.
The fines by European privateness watchdogs can quantity to a most of 4% of the worldwide annual income of a enterprise. — Sarah Jacob, (c) 2024 Bloomberg LP
