Uber – Court Ruling (Netherlands, 2021)

The challenge was brought by four Uber drivers, each of whom had received a separate message from Uber stating that their Uber Driver account had been deactivated because Uber had determined that they had violated the applicable contractual terms and conditions of Uber by being guilty of fraud. According to the applicants, Uber's decision was taken completely automatically without meaningful human intervention. The decision led to the immediate termination of the agreement between Uber and the applicants and to loss of income. Additionally, according to the applicants Uber violated the principle of transparency by not informing them about the underlying logic, the importance and the expected consequences of the processing for them, not informing them of the type of fraud they are accused of and by not informing them that their accounts would be blocked in the event of fraud. In addition, Uber failed to explain the grounds for the decision in intelligible words. Uber argued that it did not deactivate the accounts of the drivers solely on the basis of automated decision-making. The controller demonstrated that the decision to deactivate the account of one of the applicants was a result of an investigation which included actions taken by an Uber employee such as carrying out a personal conversation with the driver about consequences of the fraud, followed by a written confirmation. According to Uber, after a fraud signal the driver's access to the Driver app is automatically temporarily blocked until the driver has contacted an Uber employee. Access to the Driver app is reactivated as soon as the driver has made contact. Does automated termination of contract by Uber fulfil scope of automated decision making under Artcle 22 GDPR? Did Uber violate the transparency principle by failing to inform the applicants about the consequences of the procedure? The Court found that Uber's contract termination procedure does not constitute automated decision making under Articl