Uber No Longer Trust Their Drivers With Your Pick Up Or Drop Off Details.

Apparently, Uber no longer trust their drivers with your pick up and drop off destination. They announced today that they are to hide pick up and drop off details on the journey notes. 

The changes come after customers going train stations (or to the airport) have complained of burglaries on their return.

Passengers have also complained of sexual harassment from drivers who "know where you live".

In a small change which could improve the peace of mind of its passengers, Uber will now obscure the exact pick-up and drop-off locations in its drivers’ records.

What it is: 

After this feature goes live, drivers will no longer have a record of precisely where they picked you up and dropped you off. Instead the app will show them the general vicinity of each location.

This procedure is becoming increasing like a street hail, which is illegal.

According to Gizmodo, this feature will roll out around the same time as Uber’s new driver app is out for everyone, which should be within the next few weeks.

The details: 

Uber’s making the change in order to comply with the EU’s new General Data Protection Regulation. While the drivers will still need something for their records — something to show they did, indeed pick up a passenger in Area X and drop them off in Area Y at specific times — they’ll no longer retain your exact records.

Why it matters: 

While participating in a rideshare does mean you have to place enough implicit trust in a person to get into a car with them and let them drive you places, it doesn’t necessarily mean you want them to have a record of your location. This is particularly true if the one of the places in question is your home or work.

In the article by Gizmodo, the commentator states:

On the one occasion I Ubered alone, I had the driver drop me off at a location down the street and pretended to linger on the sidewalk with a phone call while he drove off. It wasn’t that I had anything against that person in particular — I just preferred that someone with whom I exchanged two sentences and made fleeting eye contact with in a rearview mirror not know my Airbnb’s location.

It’s not a catch-all solution:

It doesn’t prevent a driver from remembering your locations. Still, it’s a step towards giving wary passengers some sense of safety. Especially after it was revealed that 13,000 Uber drivers haven't had the proper criminal record checks with their TfL licenses. The fact that the rape of Uber passengers by drivers rose last year by 50% makes the service one of the most unsafe forms of travel in London.

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BREAKING NEWS: Statement from Brighton & Hove City Council Regarding Uber Relicense.

Following yesterday's licensing panel meeting, on the renewal of Uber Britannia Ltd's private hire operator's license has been delayed.

Given the scope and number of representations made to the panel, counsellors have decided to take further time to give careful and detailed consideration to the matter, to ensure the right decision is made.

The panel will reconvene later this week and will announce the decision on the renewal of the license as soon as possible following that meeting. 

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UPDATED: Brighton and Hove lLcensing Panel Considers Uber Relicensing In All Day Meeting.

AN all-day meeting of the Brighton and Hove city council licensing committee has heard from taxi companies who want Uber’s Licence revoked because it is not “fit and proper.”

Customers speaking in support of the ride-hailing app praised its convenience and user-friendliness. Well they would do, they don't care about safety or regulation....they just want cheap.

But opponents have cited a data breach and a lack of wheelchair-accessible vehicles as reasons to pull the licence, which was first granted in November 2015. Also to be mentioned is the fact that Uber allows 13,000 of its London drivers onto their books knowing they have fake criminal record checks and many have had fake medicals.

Chairwoman Cllr Jacqui O’Quinn told the meeting that even if the council revokes the licence, Uber drivers licensed elsewhere will still be entitled to operate in the city.

After lunch Uber barrister Philip Kolvin said the company was not trying was not trying to “skirt round” the city’s regulations. Makes a change from their normal policy of "it's easier to seek forgiveness than permission". 

He said Uber had regionalised its business and prevented London-licensed drivers from operating in the city. But speaking to local drivers, his is far from the truth as TfL roundels can be spotted daily on many vehicles working the Uber app.

Uber have tried bribing their drivers, offering them up to £1,000 to switch from a London licence to a Brighton licence. 

The company said they will have 20 wheelchair accessible vehicles by the time it has 100 drivers here. It currently has only has 62 with WAV few and far between.

A decision will be announced on Wednesday.

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Tilehurst Private Hire Company Fined For Operating In Reading With Expired Transport For London Roundels

A Tilehurst Privat Hire company has been heavily fined for breaking the rules.

In a routine inspection, licensing officers spotted a silver Mercedes Vito operating as a school transport vehicle outside The Holy Brook School in Ashampstead Road, Southcote.

On closer inspection, the officers realised the car was displaying an expired Transport for London private hire vehicle licence plate.

The operation, carried out by Reading Borough Council's licensing officers and legal team, then managed to track down the offenders.

The men responsible have both been slapped with fines for breaking the rules at separate hearings in Reading Magistrates Court.

Anthony Roe, 51, of Lower Armour Road, Tilehurst, the operator of 1st Class Cars, was found guilty in his absence of operating a private hire vehicle without a current licence, during a hearing on Monday, April 9.

He was fined £800 and ordered to pay legal costs of £1,500 and an £80 victim surcharge.

Clarence Harry, 63, of Halls Road, Tilehurst, Berkshire, the driver of the Mercedes Vito, appeared before magistrates on Thursday, April 12, and was found guilty of driving/plying for hire without a licence.

He was fined £120 and ordered to pay legal costs of £120 and a £30 victim surcharge.

The council's licensing officers are regularly out and about in the borough carrying out checks on private hire vehicles, their drivers for the safety of all their customers.

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Sunday Special Report: We've All Heard Of Uber's GreyBall Program, But What actually Is It

Greyball is a software tool used by the ride-hailing service Uber to identify and deny service to certain riders, including riders who Uber suspects of violating its terms of service. 

Uber's use of Greyball was made public in a March 3, 2017, investigative report by The New York Times, which described how, as early as 2014, Uber had used Greyball to evade local government authorities in the United States, Australia, South Korea, and China. In the days following the publication of the New York Times story, Uber admitted that it had used Greyball to thwart government regulators and it promised to stop using the tool for that purpose.

Uber reportedly developed Greyball to identify individuals who Uber suspected of using its service improperly, and it began using the tool as early as 2014. According to Uber, Greyball can "hide the standard city app view for individual riders, enabling Uber to show that same rider a different version." Uber claimed that it used Greyball to deny service to individuals suspected of violating the company's terms of services, such as people seeking to harm Uber drivers, disrupt Uber operations, or carry out law enforcement actions against Uber drivers. However, after The New York Times revealed Greyball's existence in March 2017, Uber said it would stop using it to evade local government regulators.

According to the New York Times report, which was based on interviews of four current and former Uber employees and a review of internal Uber documents, Greyball used several methods to identify and deny service to government officials who were investigating Uber for violations of local laws. Those methods included:

* Geofencing. Uber would create a digital map that identified the locations of city government offices. If a potential rider attempted to hail a ride from the area around a government building, Greyball would flag the individual as a possible law enforcement agent.

* Mining credit card databases. If Uber identified a credit card as being associated with a government agency or police union, it would flag that individual in Greyball. 

* Identifying devices. Since government agencies would often buy cheap cellphones for use in sting operations, Uber employees would visit electronics stores to obtain model numbers for inexpensive phones and input those model numbers into Greyball. 

* Searches of social media. Uber employees searched social media profiles to identify possible law enforcement agents. Uber then flagged those individuals in Greyball. 

* Eyeballing. Greyball would determine if a potential rider had been opening and closing the Uber app numerous times without calling for a ride.

In May 2017, several news organizations reported that the United States Department of Justice had opened a criminal investigation into Uber's use of Greyball to avoid local law enforcement operations.

Transport for London (TfL) cited use of Greyball in London as one of the reasons for its decision not to renew Uber's private hire operator licence. The decision states that the way in which Uber uses Greyball contributes to it failing to meet the standards of a "fit and proper" private hire operator. 

Consequently, Uber would not be able to operate legally in London after its licence expired on 30 September 2017 unless they entered an appeal within 21 days. Uber challenged the ban in court and are currently still working even though they've been cited as not fit and proper by the licensing authority. 

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Electric Scooters Are Giving U.S. Cities Uber Déjà Vu

Uber CEO Had Secret Meeting With Mike Brown In January According to FOI Request

LONDON (Reuters) - London’s Transport Commissioner Mike Brown met Uber [UBER.UL]boss Dara Khosrowshahi in January, a freedom of information request revealed, as the Silicon Valley app fights to keep its cars on the streets of its most important European market.

Uber is battling a decision by the city’s transport regulator last September to strip it of its licence after it was deemed unfit to run a taxi service, a ruling Uber is appealing.

Since then Uber has made a series of changes to its business model, responding to requests from regulators, including the introduction of 24/7 telephone support and the proactive reporting of serious incidents to London’s police.

Khosrowshahi flew to London in October for discussions with Brown after which Uber promised to make things right in the British capital city.

The pair had a second meeting in London in January, according to a response to a freedom of information request from Reuters.

“The Commissioner met with Dara Khosrowshahi on 3 October 2017 and 15 January 2018, both meetings took place in London,” Transport for London (TfL) said.

A TfL spokesman declined to provide an immediate comment on what was discussed at the meeting. Uber declined to comment.

Reuters had asked for a list of every meeting which had taken place between Uber and TfL’s private hire team and/or Brown since Sept. 22 but TfL declined to release such details.

“We are not obliged to supply the remainder of the information requested in relation to meetings as it ... relates to information where disclosure would be likely to prejudice the exercise by any public authority of its functions ..,” it said.

A court hearing over Uber’s appeal is due this month before the substance of the appeal is heard in June.

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