The Dutch Data Protection Authority has fined Uber €825 million ($966 million) for deactivating drivers’ accounts through automated systems without adequately informing them, delivering the second-largest penalty yet imposed under Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation and intensifying scrutiny of algorithmic decisions that can directly affect people’s livelihoods.
The penalty, set out in an August 17 decision reviewed by Reuters and confirmed by the Dutch regulator on Friday, relates to incidents involving Uber drivers in Europe between 2018 and 2022. The case originated with a complaint in France and was handled by the Dutch authority because Uber’s European headquarters are in the Netherlands.
Uber said it would appeal, strongly rejecting both the decision and the size of the fine. The company said it takes drivers’ rights seriously and that its policies include human reviews and opportunities for drivers to challenge account suspensions.
The Dutch regulator, however, said Uber had committed serious infringements by deactivating driver accounts without warning or meaningful human involvement. Its deputy chair, Monique Verdier, said the consequences could be severe because drivers could suddenly lose their income, arguing that a computer should not make decisions on its own when those decisions have major consequences for individuals.
The dispute centres on Uber’s use of automated systems to identify suspected fraud and other forms of misconduct. Drivers were temporarily suspended when algorithms concluded, for example, that they had taken unnecessary detours to inflate fares or accepted trips without intending to complete them.
Uber said such suspensions were generally brief and that it did not permanently deactivate accounts without human review. The Dutch agency said, however, that drivers with low customer ratings were sometimes permanently deactivated by computer. Uber disputed that finding, maintaining that it had never automated permanent deactivation decisions.
The company also argued that the fine was disproportionate because relatively few drivers were affected. Uber said 126 drivers in Europe were deactivated as a result of low customer ratings in 2021. The Dutch authority said the penalty was calculated as a fraction of Uber’s 2025 annual turnover.
The decision highlights a central requirement of Europe’s GDPR rules: decisions made solely by computer algorithms are prohibited when they have a significant impact on people’s lives, with meaningful human review and an opportunity to challenge the decision required.
The Uber penalty is second only to the €1.2 billion fine imposed on Meta by Ireland in 2023 for unlawfully transferring European Facebook users’ data to the United States. Meta is appealing that decision.
European regulators have imposed billions of euros in penalties on major US technology companies in recent years under privacy, competition and digital-market rules. Meta, Google, Apple and Amazon have all faced multiple fines, although headline penalties are frequently reduced or overturned following lengthy appeals.
The growing regulatory pressure has also become a point of tension between Europe and the United States. US President Donald Trump has criticised such penalties, while a US State Department official said in April that EU fines on US companies were the “biggest single source of friction” in US-EU economic relations.
The Uber case has meanwhile been welcomed by PersonalData.io, the Swiss digital-rights group that helped French Uber drivers obtain information about algorithmic decisions affecting their work and contributed to the investigation. Its founder, Paul-Olivier Dehaye, said the group was preparing a class action seeking compensation for drivers.
Beyond the size of the penalty, the case raises a broader question for the platform economy: how much power can companies delegate to algorithms when an automated decision can determine whether a worker keeps earning an income? For European regulators, the answer increasingly appears to be that consequential decisions cannot be left to machines alone.
