Uber may have to suspend service in California and pay a $7.3 million fine as a penalty for withholding information from state regulators, according to a ruling this week by a CPUC administrative law judge. The decision found that Uber was not fully complying with the state’s requests for information about its drivers and riders, including how many requests the company gets for accessibility accommodations and information about any safety-related incidents. Uber has already announced an appeal, which will put the suspension on hold and leave the service operating in the State for now.
The company claims it provided sufficient information to the CPUC, and that going further would compromise the privacy of both drivers and riders. Uber also indicated that the information requested is beyond the CPUC’s authority and would not improve public safety. The CPUC was specifically seeking the number and percentage of customers who requested accessible vehicles and how often Uber’s California fleet could meet those requests. It also sought information on the number of rides requested and accepted in each zip code, and the number of rides that were requested but not accepted.
The possibility of suspension likely looms large for the transportation giant, which is based in California and faces many similar regulatory and disclosure battles world-wide. Uber faced massive protests and vehicle attacks in France last month, and is currently fending off more than a dozen lawsuits across Europe. Yet the company’s ability to wield user privacy as a shield against regulators is dubious at best, considering Uber’s openness about how closely it tracks user rides and previous threats to use that information against journalists and other prominent Uber critics.
Privacy issues in the sharing economy are something of a double-edged sword, with services like Uber and Airbnb using concerns about user privacy in an attempt to ward off regulators seeking information, while also mining that information for themselves. It is likely Uber will comply with the CPUC’s request before any suspension would kick in, yet how the appeal process shakes out will provide insight into the leverage the Commission will have over ride-sharing companies going forward.
