A California judge ruled this week that the ridesharing service Uber must pay a $59.1 million fine for repeatedly refusing to turn over data related to its 2019 sexual assault report to the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). Uber issued a report last December which revealed that it had received 3,045 reports of sexual assault in the U.S. in 2018, an average of more than eight per day.
Business Insider reports that the ride-sharing service Uber has been ordered by an administrative law judge to pay a $59.1 million fine to the CPUC for repeatedly refusing to comply with requests to transfer data about the company’s 2019 sexual assault report.
The judges ruling stated that Uber “refused, without any legitimate legal or factual grounds, to comply” with multiple previous rulings ordering the company to hand over the data. Uber issued a report last December which revealed that it had received 3,045 reports of sexual assault in the U.S. in 2018, an average of more than eight per day.
Shortly after the release of the report, the CPUC, which is responsible for regulating ridesharing services, demanded more information from Uber. The CPUC demanded that Uber hand over the contact information for all authors of the safety report, witnesses to the alleged assaults including the victims, and the person at Uber each incident was reported to.
An Uber spokesperson old Business Insider: “The CPUC has been insistent in its demands that we release the full names and contact information of sexual assault survivors without their consent. We opposed this shocking violation of privacy, alongside many victims’ rights advocates.”
Uber believes that the data would end up in the hands of “untrained individuals” and that regulators had not asked other rideshare companies for similar information. A ruling in January demanded that Uber hand over the data but stated that it could be provided to the CPUC under seal in order to shield it from public view.
Yet Uber refused to comply. The judge’s ruling from earlier this week states that Uber “inserted a series of specious legal roadblocks to frustrate the Commission’s ability to gather information that would allow the Commission to determine if Uber’s TNC operations are being conducted safely.”
An Uber spokesperson blamed the CPUC for all delays and adjustments to its data request, telling Business Insider: “These punitive and confusing actions will do nothing to improve public safety and will only create a chilling effect as other companies consider releasing their own reports. Transparency should be encouraged, not punished.”
Monday’s order stated that Uber “failed to respect the authority” of the ruling issues in January and instead chose to “roll the dice” on legal challenges.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address lucasnolan@protonmail.com
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