Uber is facing a fine of roughly 825 million dollars from the Dutch data protection authority over a breach involving driver information, adding to a long running series of clashes between the ride hailing company and privacy regulators in Europe.
The Netherlands has emerged as one of the more aggressive European regulators when it comes to Uber's handling of driver data, in part because the company's European headquarters sits in the country, giving Dutch authorities jurisdiction under the European Union's data protection rules. The regulator has previously taken action against Uber over how driver information was transferred and stored, and this latest penalty adds to that pattern.
Under European Union privacy law, companies can face significant financial penalties for failing to adequately protect personal data, particularly when breaches expose sensitive information about individuals without their consent. Fines of this size are typically calculated with reference to a company's global revenue, which can make even a single violation extremely costly for a company operating at Uber's scale.
Uber has said in the past that it takes data protection seriously and has worked to bring its practices in line with regulators' expectations following earlier enforcement actions. The company is expected to have the option to appeal the fine through the Dutch courts.
The case is likely to be watched closely by other technology and gig economy companies operating in Europe, where regulators have grown increasingly willing to issue large penalties over data protection failures.