The claim has been filed at Amsterdam\u2019s district court, where the $150bn (\u00a3111bn) San Francisco tech company has its European HQ. It is the first collective legal move of its kind, according to the European Trade Union Confederation.<\/p>\n
The case centres on an opaque \u201cblack box\u201d algorithm fed on information about drivers, which sets a personalised rate for each ride. Drivers fear it pushes down fares to the minimum they are willing to accept.<\/p>\n
Drivers have told the Guardian the algorithm has offered the same job to different people at different pay rates and offers them less for a return journey after a long trip because it calculates they will not want to come home empty.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is like someone watching you all the time and knowing about your weakness \u2013 the boss is the algorithm,\u201d said Mohammed Shirwa, a 41-year-old Uber driver in Rotterdam. \u201cAll the time the algorithm is learning about you and what you are willing to accept. So the prices go low but you are stuck. It knows you need the job.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kola Oba, from Tottenham in north London, claims Uber exploits information it collects about him to push down fares.<\/p>\n
Kola Oba, who calls the algorithm \u201csoulless\u201d, was taking a break in Tottenham, north London, with another driver when they were offered the same job.<\/p>\n
The other driver was offered \u00a327 and Oba was offered \u00a323. The pair suspected it was because Oba, 48, had taken several cheap jobs and the AI assumed he would accept a lower price. Uber has previously said<\/a> such discrepancies were down to other features of its system including GPS, surge pricing, promotions and testing.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s scary \u2013 they have all my information and they are using it against my own wellbeing,\u201d Oba said. \u201cIt defines how much I earn, how long I have to work, my time with my family, my resting time.\u201d<\/p>\n AI models take an increasing role in assigning work to humans by using their rapidly increasing power to learn about a business\u2019s needs and staff behaviour and then acting as a \u201csynthetic manager\u201d.<\/p>\n The Dutch data protection authority fined<\/a> \u2060Uber \u20ac825m (\u00a3708m) last month for deactivating driver \u2060accounts through automated systems without \u200badequate notice. Uber said it would appeal. The company is also planning to roll out driverless cars in European cities from London to Zagreb, initially with human supervisions.<\/p>\n The legal case is being led by the Worker Info Exchange, a campaign group whose founder, James Farrar, secured<\/a> a UK supreme court ruling that Uber drivers should have worker rights.<\/p>\n Relating to about 241,000 drivers across the EU and the UK, the claim alleges that Uber has unlawfully used automated decision-making, including profiling, in dynamically setting pay and allocating work.<\/p>\n The lawsuit, which also claims the company unlawfully used driver data to train its AI models, is seeking damages for affected drivers and an injunction to halt the conduct which it claims breaches GDPR<\/a> data regulations.<\/p>\n The drivers claim Uber has operated dynamic pay-setting in the UK since 2023, pushing down their annual incomes by about \u00a35,000. The system was introduced in the Netherlands this year.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a>Free newsletter | Every weekday<\/p>\n Sign up to First Edition<\/p>\n Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what\u2019s happening and why it matters<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Uber\u2019s chief executive, Dara Khosrowshahi, said in 2023<\/a>: \u201cI think that what we can do better is targeting of different trips to different drivers based on their preferences or based on behavioural patterns that they\u2019re showing us.\u201d<\/p>\n Uber, which has its headquarters in San Francisco, said it categorically rejected the allegations. Photograph: Bloomberg\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Uber said it did not adjust the price offered for a trip based on an individual driver\u2019s behaviour and that a history of accepting or rejecting trips was not used to personalise pay offers. Instead, it said, dynamic pricing allowed it to increase pay on less attractive trips, boosting a driver\u2019s earning potential.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile we haven\u2019t seen the claim yet, we categorically reject the allegations,\u201d an Uber spokesperson said. \u201cThe Uber app uses real-time information about the trip such as journey, duration and destination to calculate fares.<\/p>\n \u201cDrivers see their earnings and where a trip is going before they decide whether to accept it. The vast majority of total fares continue to go where they belong: into drivers\u2019 pockets, and the percentage that Uber keeps from fares has remained relatively flat<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n A 2025 study <\/a>by academics at the University of Oxford, which Uber said relied on incomplete and selective data, found<\/a> there had been substantial cuts in driver earnings after the \u201cdynamic\u201d algorithm was introduced.<\/p>\n Farrar said: \u201cIt\u2019s bad enough that Uber\u2019s dynamic pay algorithms have squeezed driver pay for years now but the intrusive and underhanded way in which Uber uses its technology to monitor and influence drivers\u2019 behaviour is an affront to their dignity as workers and as human beings.\u201d<\/p>\n Anton Ekker, a Dutch lawyer leading the case, said: \u201cA computer algorithm should not independently make decisions that strip individuals of their livelihood. Like so many other online platforms, it should be held accountable for the large-scale exploitation of vulnerabilities of European citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Uber drivers have launched a landmark legal action against the ride-hailing company claiming they live in \u201cconstant fear\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1039515,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[21],"tags":[691,738,158,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-1039514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-technology","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117203342944999462","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1039514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1039514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1039514\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1039515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1039514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1039514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1039514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1782653358_662_1000.jpg\")
<\/p>\n