Uber used a modified app to frustrate Dutch research into UberPOP
Taxi company Uber deployed various kill switches to frustrate the investigation into its UberPOP service around 2015. Inspectors who wanted to look around in the app did not see any drivers. It concerned a version of the app that was probably known internally as Greyball.
UberPOP
Inspectors from the Human Environment and Transport Inspectorate were able to open the app and log in, but the app then acted as if there were no drivers. writes Faith based on the Uber Files, which contain more than 120,000 internal emails, memos and minutes from the taxi company. They came into the hands of the English newspaper The Guardian. She shared it with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), where the FD and research platform Investico could work with the files from the Netherlands in addition to Trouw.
The existence of the tool itself came out in 2017, but at the time it was not clear that it might also have been used in the Netherlands. The software identified officials based on information collected in the app, after which they were banned from using Uber. For example, Uber users who were found to be investigating the taxi service would not be offered drivers.
This happened without the civil servant knowing about it; for example, nearby Uber cars would be shown within the app, when in fact they were not present. Showing ‘ghost cars’ would prevent the civil servant in question from getting a ride. Credit card details, among other things, were used to determine whether a user may have been part of a government organization.
Uber used the tool in the Netherlands in 2014, according to communication between CEO Travis Kalanick and Dutch director Niek van Leeuwen. Kalanick said on a report from Van Leeuwen that inspectors were shielded and that the Dutch division was ‘doing well’.
The tool is effective, according to ILT documents that became public after a Wob request. Trouw writes that officials write to each other that they cannot catch anyone during nighttime actions. “UberPOP may be less active in Amsterdam,” an inspector writes as an explanation, “but we don’t know for sure.” An inspector then puts Uber on his private phone and then sees drivers in the area. Uber stopped using Greyball in 2017.
It had been clear for some time that Uber was trying to mislead the Dutch authorities with technical means. For example, during the raid on the Amsterdam office in 2015, Uber deployed Ripley, a kill switch that automatically locked all employees out of Uber systems, so that authorities could not obtain data.
In addition, Uber tried through political pressure to get its service UberPOP, in which ‘people ride together’, no longer illegal. For example, VVD MP Barbara Visser asked Uber favorable parliamentary questions about the issue and the company then tried to influence the official in charge of answers for favorable answers. Former European Commissioner and VVD politician Neelie Kroes also contacted ministers and Prime Minister Rutte on behalf of the company to put in a favorable word for the company. Later she would officially be employed by Uber, but that was not the case at the time. It didn’t help in the end, because UberPOP never became legal in the Netherlands and other European countries.