UberEats' Europe Chief Jumps Ship As Business Practices Face Further Scrutiny

The head of UberEats in Europe has become the latest senior executive to leave the company, as the ride-hailing arm of the business faces further pressure over its working practices in the UK.

Jambu Palaniappan quit to join a European venture capital company in London, said Uber, which recently lost its licence to operate in the capital. 

The news came on Thursday as Uber faced questions from the business, energy and industrial strategy select committee over the hours worked by its cab drivers. The committee has demanded more information after the company failed to disclose how many drivers were working more than 70-80 hours a week.

Rachel Reeves, the committee chair, said: “Passengers booking journeys through Uber will want to know they are safe and secure. Uber needs to provide reassurance on these issues by setting out when it will introduce driver hour limits for its workforce and spell out what these limits will be.

 

Jambu Palaniappan speaks at an event in Cairo. Photograph: Mosa'ab Elshamy/AP

“Drivers working long hours risk compromising the safety of both themselves and their passengers. It is strange that a data-driven business like Uber appears unable to answer our question on how many of its drivers are working more than 70 and 80 hours a week. We expect them to now respond with the missing figures.”

Uber said: “Drivers spend an average of 30 hours a week logged into our app. However, this is not the same as the number of hours spent driving since drivers can log in while on a break or doing other things. We take the issue of tired driving seriously, which is why we regularly remind drivers to take rest breaks and will shortly be introducing hours limits in our app.”

Uber’s head of public policy, Andrew Byrne, and one of the company’s drivers were questioned by the committee last month.

On Wednesday, it emerged that 2.7 million people in the UK were affected by a 2016 security breach that compromised customers’ data, including names, email addresses and mobile phone numbers. 

The Information Commissioner’s Office is investigating the breach and could fine Uber. 

Palaniappan joined Uber five years ago and became head of UberEats for Europe, Middle East and Africa in August 2016, as the company was rolling out the food delivery service in the UK, going head to head with Deliveroo. He will depart at the end of January. 

In a memo circulated to UberEats staff on Thursday morning, Palaniappan said leaving Uber was an “extremely difficult decision”.

“When I joined this company in 2012, Uber was just a small startup with 75 employees focused primarily on the US,” he said.

Uber is appealing against Transport for London’s decision in September to withdraw its private-hire licence, when the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, accused the company of failing to “play by the rules”. It has recruited the former Bank of England adviser Laurel Powers-Freeling as chair of UK operations. Uber says it has 5m customers in the UK, served by 50,000 drivers.

The GMB union has instructed the law firm Leigh Day to apply to intervene, or be listed as an interested party, in the appeal being brought by Uber London against the TfL decision. 

In the application to Westminster magistrates court, GMB said it would like to participate in the appeal proceedings as it is concerned that Uber’s business model puts public safety at serious risk.

GMB claims that Uber encourages and incentivises drivers to work excessive hours. 

London Uber driver Syed Khalil, told the the Commons work and pensions committee in February that it was usual practice for drivers to work as much as 100 hours a week and claimed the company did not prevent drivers from logging on to do so. 

To retain their account status, Uber drivers also have to accept at least 80% of trip requests, according to the union.

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Something You Won't Be Viewing In Today's Evening Standard Or On @BBCLondonNews #taxiwarmclothing 2017

 Open Letter To Everyone Who Helped make this year's  #taxiwarmclothing 2017 a success. 

From Dean Thomas. 

I would like to say a big thank to the save our black taxi family for all your donations of clothing and toiletries, we were all truly humbled by your generosity. 

The lady pictured below, in the new green ruck sack, given to her by the #markmasonhall Freemasons, filled her sack with jeans,jumpers, tops, underwear, toiletries asked me to blow you all a big kiss and so did the other 200 men and women.

Big thank you to ladies and gents at #mytaxi who came down and were handing stuff out to the homeless community with big smiles on there faces.

Big thank you to the #ltda whose staff were so kind to us and the use of there storage facility was crucial in this whole effort in coming together, and frank who drove the advan to meet us in time with all the goods on board in St James Sq.

Big thank you to the lovely Zelpha and her staff at #eat the sandwich chain who give out sandwiches, rolls, baguettes, wraps, tea and coffee, from the back of Anton Haynes taxi every Wednesday at 6.30pm, and if you do want to give any clothing ,toiletries this is where you can give them.

Big shout to Dan Heath of the WCHCD and of the Mark mason hall for planting the seed that led to 100 brand new ruck sacks and 100 brand new Sleeping bags and 5 bags of ladies and gents underwear.

And lastly massive thank you to the taxi drivers, #londonsfinest, who gave up their time and the use of their taxis to serve the homeless community from the backs of their cabs with such warmth and passion. 

Dave clements and his partner Louise, Scott Daniels, Ian Gray, Debby young, DJ Orion Salsa, Johnny Carrot, Steven Crisp, Alison Henry .

Big love to my partner Helen who put a lot of time and love into this as well.

Big love to you all xxx

Dean Thomas.

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Parliament UK: Chair Of BEIS Writes To Uber For Details On Limiting Drivers Hours.

Rachel Reeves, Chair of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) Committee, writes to Uber for details on their efforts to introduce limits on the number of hours its drivers work amid concerns over driver and passenger safety.

Letter from the Chair to Andrew Byrne (EMEA Uber) relating to driver working hours, 28 November 2017

Inquiry: Taylor Review of modern working practices

Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee

The BEIS Committee Chair has also pressed Uber for more information on the hours worked by its drivers, following Uber's failure to disclose details ( PDF 153 KB) to the Committee relating to how many of its drivers are working more than 70 and 80 hours a week.

Uber had previously appeared before the BEIS Committee on 10 October as part of its joint inquiry on the Taylor Review of modern working practices.

Rachel Reeves MP, Chair of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, said:

"Passengers booking journeys through Uber will want to know they are safe and secure. 

Uber needs to provide reassurance on these issues by setting out when it will introduce driver hour limits for its workforce and spell out what these limits will be. 

Drivers working long hours risk compromising the safety of both themselves and their passengers. 

It is strange that a data-driven business like Uber appears unable to answer our question on how many of its drivers are working more than 70 and 80 hours a week. 

We expect them to now respond with the missing figures."

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Google Sued a For Illegal Data Breach : UK iPhone Users Could Get £300 In Compensation

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Geely Looking To Overseas Markets To Sell Half Its Production Of Taxis.

Letter To Taxi Leaks : Uber Breach Of Data : Andrew Peters Secretary GMB Brighton & Hove Taxi Section

Simon Court

Senior Solicitor

Brighton & Hove Council

Town Hall 

Norton Road

Hove

November 25 2017

Dear Mr Court

Uber Breach of Data 

I write to you with reference to the serious matter of Uber concealing a breach of data and the councils continuous support of Uber being ‘Fit and Proper’ to hold a Brighton & Hove Operators licence. 

Reports have stated that some 57 million account holders and some 600,000 driver details were stolen in 2016 .

It is one matter having such a breach of security in the first place but it is an entirely different matter that such a serious breach in 2016 was never revealed to the public or regulators until one year later in November 2017  when it was revealed that it had paid 'hush money' to the hackers.

When it is considered that Fred Jones of Uber immediately ‘reached out’ to the public to condemn TfL and the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan for refusing to re-licence Uber and yet remained absolutely silent with no warning to the public when data was stolen... such inaction can clearly demonstrate the fitness of an organisation that is fully supported by the council.

It is presumed that Mr Fred Jones gave no indication to the council that Uber tried to hide this serious data breach when applying for the renewal of the Uber Brighton & Hove Operators Licence when presenting the company as ‘Fit  Proper’ to hold such a licence.

TfL Investigation

We have since learnt that TfL are now involved in the investigation and on the principle that Brighton & Hove Council Hove have based the recent re-licensing of Uber on how TfL are managing the refusal of the Uber London Licence we now call on Brighton & Hove Council to act in the same way as TfL and carry out its own investigation into the breach of data and the implications of Uber remaining silent about this for over a year.

We also require the council to justify to the trade that it still considers Uber to be ‘Fit and Proper’ to hold a Brighton & Hove Operators Licence.

For clarity:

Evening Standard - TfL investigates whether massive Uber cyber attack impacted Londoners

“The ride-hailing firm admitted this week to concealing a cyber-attack that affected 57 million customers and drivers last year.

Security services and the information watchdog were left scrabbling to assess the scale of the damage on Tuesday, amid warnings Uber's secrecy could result in "higher fines".

The firm hid the breach by reportedly paying hackers a ransom of £75,000 ($100,000) to delete the data and keep the security lapse quiet.

While Uber said it could not confirm how many customers in the UK had their details compromised, TfL said they are working to establish whether the hack affected Londoners. A TfL spokesman said: “We are working to gain clarity from Uber on whether any of the issues seen in the US have occurred here. 

“We are pressing them for the full details of what has happened so that we can be satisfied that all the right protections are in place for the personal data of drivers and customers in London.”

Stolen information included names, email addresses and mobile phone numbers, in addition to the names and number plates of 600,000 drivers in the US

Prime Minister Theresa May's official spokesman said: "These are obviously concerning reports and the National Cyber Security Centre is working closely with domestic and international agencies, including the National Crime Agency and the Information Commissioner's Office, to investigate if and how this breach has affected people in the UK. "It is a worldwide incident and it is unclear at this stage which countries were affected by the hack.

"What we do know is, based on current information, we have not seen evidence that financial details have been compromised." He added that Uber "did not notify individuals in the UK, the UK Government or UK regulators" at the time the hack was discovered in October last year.

The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) warned Uber it could face fines, saying the incident raised "huge concerns around its data protection policies and ethics".  The tech company reportedly tracked down the hackers and pressured them to sign non-disclosure agreements so news of the incident did not become public.

Company executives had then dressed up the breach as a "bug bounty", the practice of paying hackers to test the strength of software security, according to The New York Times. James Dipple-Johnstone, deputy commissioner of the information watchdog, said: "Uber's announcement about a concealed data breach last October raises huge concerns around its data protection policies and ethics.

"It's always the company's responsibility to identify when UK citizens have been affected as part of a data breach and take steps to reduce any harm to consumers.

"If UK citizens were affected then we should have been notified so that we could assess and verify the impact on people whose data was exposed.

He added: "Deliberately concealing breaches from regulators and citizens could attract higher fines for companies."

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Please note that I have supplied a copy of this email to various organisations...publications ....individuals  and interested parties and with respect your reply will be made publically available unless you specifically refuse permission.

I look forward to your early reply on such an important matter.

Andrew Peters

Secretary

GMB Brighton & Hove Taxi Section

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Uber's Data Hack Affects 2.7m Of Their Customers, Not For The First Time.

Uber's Data Hack, Has Affected 2.7m Of Their Customers And Also Their Drivers. 

In October 2016, Uber experienced a data security incident that resulted in the hacking of information related to riders and drivers accounts. 

For riders, this information included the names, email addresses and mobile phone numbers related to accounts globally. 

Uber said their outside forensics experts have not seen any indication that trip location history, credit card numbers, bank account numbers or dates of birth were downloaded, but customers have been all over social media, saying they've been charged for expensive journeys they never booked.

This is a global issue, but in the United Kingdom alone, this involves approximately 2.7m riders and drivers. 

Uber again say this is an approximation rather than an accurate and definitive count, because sometimes the information we get through the app or our website that we use to assign a country code is not the same as the country where a person actually lives. 

Again proof that this company takes little regard of complaints made on Twitter or Facebook. As they don't have a complaints land line number (a requirement for operators, under the PHV act 1998) this would be the majority of camp,aunts made. 

When this happened, we took immediate steps to secure the data, shut down further unauthorised access, and strengthen our data security.

They also decided to say nothing to regulators or customers and have Bly spoken now as this breach has been publicly exposed. 

DO I NEED TO TAKE ANY ACTION? 
Best advice to customers is to delete their account and contact their bank, informing them not to pay any Uber trips charged to their account. 

Uber have made a statement that they encourage all users to regularly monitor their accounts for any issues. 

They say customers should let them know via the Help Centre if anything unexpected or unusual related to your Uber account. You can do this by tapping "Help" in your app, then "Account and Payment Options" > "I have an unknown charge" > "I think my account has been hacked".

Funny they should put this out after stating that no customers (to their knowledge) have been hacked! 

It also appears that their own drivers are now complaining that money has been taken from their accounts!

NCSC advice for Uber customers and drivers

The NCSC has also provides guidance which can be found below..

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Mayor Khan has turned a blind eye to all the scandal that's hit the media over the past few weeks. The rise in UberRape, the escalation of road traffic accidents, the allegations of industrial espionage of competitors and the Data hacking. 

Khan made his feelings about Uber clear in the Osbourne's Evening Standard

THIS IS NOT THE FIRST TIME UBERS CUSTOMER SERVERS HAVE BEEN HACKED !

In addition to failing to notify users and the public about the information that was exposed, the company paid the hackers $100,000 to delete the data and subsequently had them sign nondisclosure agreements. The city further alleges that the ride-hail company failed to correct security vulnerabilities that led to a previous data breach in 2014. 

The complaint reads:

“After the details of Uber’s May 12, 2014 data breach were revealed to the public, Uber was investigated by a number of state and federal regulators that were concerned about its inadequate data security practices. Uber ultimately promised to bolster its data security policies by, inter alia, adopting protective technologies for the storage, access, and transfer of private information ... less than a year later the same failures led to a breach that was one thousand times worse.”

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