Drivers and Couriers

A summary of Karen Levy's 2023 book Data Driven, which studies the installation of electronic logging devices in the cabs of US truckers, removing much of their traditional autonomy. Nominally installed to improve safety, the devices actually are making trucking less safe by pushing experienced

The Dutch data protection authority has fined Uber €10 million for failing to inform drivers how long it retains their data or how it secures it when sending it to countries outside the EEA, and hindering drivers' access to their data by making requests unnecessarily complicated. The fine follows a

The Spanish data protection regulator AEPD has fined Glovo €550,000 for excessively surveilling delivery drivers and failing to protect their data from abuse by company personnel in other countries. The data includes details of each delivery, all communications exchanged with the platform, and

FullScreen Research claims that in the competitive German food delivery market, Lieferando uses automation to monitor its employees and that Wolt violates labour laws by paying couriers in cash and employing them illegally A former supervisor with Lieferando says that the system flags up

Former delivery driver Edrissa Manjang is pursuing a claim for harassment, indirect discrimination, and victimisation in UK courts, alleging that a racially-biased algorithm kicked him off Uber Eats' ride-sharing app. After Uber Eats supplied information that contradicted Manjang's original claims

In response to a case brought by three Italian trade unions, a court in Palermo has ruled that the points system used by the Italian food delivery service Foodinho discriminates against disabled and older riders, as well as those with special family or personal circumstances. A subsidiary of Spain's

In a study of the data Uber collected on a Geneva driver who obtained his data via a Subject Access Request, the Gig Economy Project finds that the data is difficult for drivers to parse, contains many inaccuracies, and is incomplete. In addition, obtaining the data in the first place is near

Foodinho, the Italian food delivery subsidiary of the Spanish company Glovo, continues to accumulate millions of euros in fines for infringements of labour law such as collecting and misusing riders' data. New research studying Glovo's app indicates that the company appears to have created its own

Uber Eats delivery drivers in northern French cities went on strike on October 22, 2023 to protest falling wages since the platform changed its policies to effectively reduce its per-kilometre compensation. Drivers complain the platform is less transparent since the changes. https://actu.fr/economie

The Argentinian startup Nippy offers delivery drivers access to rest stops including free coffee, phone charging stations, and toilets in return for downloading its app and allowing it to sell the data the app collects to partners in insurance, financial services, and telecommunications. The result

A new report from Worker Info Exchange finds that drivers working for Just Eat have had their accounts abruptly de-activated by automated systems for alleged overpayments as small as £1.35, which many are contesting. Just Eat says that the overpayments were triggered because drivers had incorrectly

Four French trade unions representing drivers signed an agreement with ride-hailing platforms to provide drivers with a minimum income and provide greater transparency regarding suspending and terminating drivers. Platforms must now give drivers a chance to respond before deactivating their accounts

In two cases brought by Worker Info Exchange and the App Drivers and Couriers Union on behalf of drivers, the Court of Appeal in Amsterdam has upheld a 2021 ruling in a lower court that under the GDPR Uber and Ola Cabs must disclose the personal information and profiling that the companies use to

A large-scale preprint study of more than 100 million rides between 2018 and 2019 in Chicago, where a 2020 law requires ride-hailing apps to disclose fares, finds that the dynamic pricing algorithms used by ride-hailing companies such as Lyft, Uber, and Via are socially biased. The finding is in

AI-powered cameras made by the startup Netradyne and used in Amazon's delivery vans incorrectly penalises drivers for events beyond their control or which do not constitute unsafe driving such as if they are cut off by another vehicle. The data collected by the cameras is sent to Amazon, which uses

Delivery drivers in Jakarta use GPS-spoofing apps in order to improve their chances of selection by the Gojek delivery and transport app, an equivalent to Apple Pay, Postmates, Venmo, and Uber all in one. Gojek that operates in more than 200 cities in Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam, and Thailand