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The Dutch DPA said that Uber transferred driver data to its headquarters in the US without sufficient protection over a period of more than two years.
The Netherlands’ data protection watchdog has fined Uber €290m for transferring the personal data of European taxi drivers to the US.
Following an investigation, the Dutch Data Protection Authority (DPA) found that Uber collected sensitive information of drivers from Europe and retained it on US servers. This included data such as account details, taxi licences, location, photos, payment details, identity documents, and in some cases even criminal and medical records.
In an announcement today (26 August), the Dutch DPA said that Uber transferred this data to its headquarters in the US over a period of more than two years “without using transfer tool” – meaning that data protection was not “sufficient”.
Ever since the EU Court of Justice invalidated Privacy Shield – a data transfer arrangement between the EU and the US – in 2020, tech companies need Standard Contractual Clauses to transfer data between the two jurisdictions. However, Uber stopped using them from August 2021 and started using the successor to Privacy Shield only at the end of last year.
Aleid Wolfsen, chair of the Dutch DPA, said that the while the EU GDPR requires businesses and governments to handle personal data with “due care”, this is not “self-evident outside Europe”.
“Think of governments that can tap data on a large scale,” Wolfsen said. “That is why businesses are usually obliged to take additional measures if they store personal data of Europeans outside the European Union. Uber did not meet the requirements of the GDPR to ensure the level of protection to the data with regard to transfers to the US. That is very serious.”
Just last week, Uber struck a partnership with GM-owned Cruise that will see its robotaxis made available on the Uber app next year. The deal comes after Cruise saw its robotaxi services take a major hit in the US after one of its vehicles dragged and pinned down a hit-and-run victim in San Francisco last October.
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