Uber files expose murky tactics used by ride sharing app for European expansion

More than 124,000 of Uber’s confidential documents have been leaked to The Guardian, exposing how it attempted to lobby Joe Biden, hide data from the police, and persuade France’s Emmanuel Macron to change laws in its favour.

The leaked “Uber files” include 83,000 emails and 1,000 files exposing conversations involving the taxi firm, spanning an almost five-year period.

Uber’s co-founder Travis Kalanick, who was running the taxi service app at the time, is in the spotlight for his attempts at pushing the cab service into cities around the world, even if it meant potentially breaking laws and breaching taxi regulations.

The Uber files reveal how the company spent $90 million a year lobbying politicians, such as US President Joe Biden, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and former UK chancellor George Osborne, in its effort to impact the European taxi industry.

This includes speaking with French leader Macron, who told Uber he would reform laws in the firm’s favour, despite French taxi drivers protesting heavily in the streets against the app.

The leaks also expose how ex-EU digital commissioner Neelie Kroes lobbied for the firm, even after her term at the EU had ended, possibly in breach of EU ethics rules.

Uber also employed use of a so-called ‘kill switch’ according to the leak. This system limited police access to the company’s data, such as lists of drivers, which Uber believed would harm its growth.

“Please hit the kill switch ASAP,” Kalanick sent in one email shared by The Washington Post. “Access must be shut down in AMS,” he wrote, referring to the Amsterdam office.

The kill switch had been used in The Netherlands, Canada, Belgium, India, Romania, Hungary, and at least three times in France.

Uber claims now that the ‘kill switch’ has not been in place since 2017, when the new chief executive, Dara Khosrowshahi, took over Kalanick’s position.

In response to the leak, Uber admitted in a statement that “mistakes and missteps,” were made, but it had been transformed under the leadership of Khosrowshahi.

“Dara rewrote the company’s values, revamped the leadership team, made safety a top company priority, implemented best-in-class corporate governance, hired an independent board chair, and installed the rigorous controls and compliance necessary to operate as a public company.”

To facilitate a global investigation, the Guardian shared the data with 180 journalists at more than 40 media organisations via the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).