Drivers in Europe Net Big Data Rights Win Against Uber and Ola
upstart writes:
Drivers in Europe net big data rights win against Uber and Ola:
In a major win over opaque algorithmic management in the so-called gig economy an appeals court in the Netherlands has found largely in favor of platform workers litigating against ride-hailing giants Uber and Ola - judging the platforms violated the drivers' rights in a number of instances, including when algorithms were involved in terminating driver accounts.
The court also ruled the platforms cannot rely on trade secrets exemptions to deny drivers access to their data. Although challenges remain for regional workers to use existing laws to get enough visibility into platforms' data processing to know what information to ask for to be able to meaningfully exercise their data access rights.
The appeal court rulings can be found here, here and here (in Dutch).
The appeal was brought by the not-for-profit data trust Worker Info Exchange (WIE) in support of members of the App Drivers & Couriers Union (ADCU) in the UK and a driver based in Portugal.
One case against Uber's robo-firings involved four drivers (three based in the UK, one in Portugal); a second case against Uber over data access involved six UK-based drivers; while a data access case against Ola involved thee UK-based drivers.
In the data access cases drivers were seeking information such as passenger ratings, fraud probability scores, earning profiles, as well as data on the allocation of journeys to drivers - including Uber's batch matching and upfront pricing systems - as well as information about the existence of automated decision-making touching their work on the platforms.
Several decisions taken by the ride-hailing platforms were found to meet the relevant legal test of automated decision-making - including assigning rides; calculating prices; rating drivers; calculating 'fraud probability scores'; and deactivating drivers' accounts in response to suspicions of fraud - meaning drivers are entitled to information on the underlying logic of these decisions. (And also to a right to meaningful human review if they object to decisions.)
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