Dutch regulator fines Uber €825 million over automated driver account suspensions

A near-record penalty under GDPR

The Dutch data protection authority has fined Uber €825 million ($966 million) for deactivating driver accounts through automated systems without adequately informing the drivers affected, according to The Guardian. The decision is dated 17 August 2026 and was confirmed by the regulator on Friday, 21 August.

The Guardian reports that the penalty ranks as the second-largest ever issued under Europe's General Data Protection Regulation. Only the €1.2 billion ($1.4 billion) fine Ireland's regulator imposed on Meta in 2023, over unlawful transfers of European Facebook users' data to the United States, is larger. Meta is appealing that penalty, and Uber has said it will appeal this one as well.

What the regulator found

The case covers incidents in Europe between 2018 and 2022 and began with a complaint filed in France. It was handled by the Dutch authority because Uber's European headquarters are located in the Netherlands.

According to The Guardian, Uber's systems temporarily suspended the accounts of drivers suspected of fraud — for instance when algorithms concluded that a driver had taken unnecessary detours to inflate fares or had accepted trips without intending to complete them.

The regulator also found that drivers with low customer ratings were in some cases permanently deactivated by computer, with no human involvement in the decision. Monique Verdier, the authority's deputy chair, said Uber had committed "serious infringements" by deactivating accounts without warning or human review, and that drivers went from having an income one moment to having none the next. "A computer should not make decisions on its own that have (such) major consequences," she said in a statement.

Uber's response

Uber says it strongly disagrees with the decision and the "disproportionate" fine, arguing that its policies include human review and opportunities for drivers to contest suspensions. The company said fraud-related suspensions were usually brief, and that it never permanently deactivated accounts without a person reviewing the case first. It also disputes the regulator's finding that low ratings triggered automated permanent deactivations, saying only 126 drivers in Europe were deactivated because of low customer ratings in 2021 — a small number that the company cites as one reason the penalty is too high.

The Guardian reports that the authority calculated the fine as a fraction of Uber's 2025 annual turnover.

A growing source of transatlantic friction

The decision adds to a series of European penalties against large American technology firms under privacy, competition and digital markets rules. Last month the EU fined Google €890 million ($1.04 billion) over anti-competitive conduct, and Meta, Google, Apple and Amazon all face multiple fines — although headline amounts are frequently reduced or reversed after years-long appeals.

The penalties have become a political sore point. Donald Trump has criticised such fines, and in April a US state department official described them as the biggest single source of friction in US–EU economic relations, according to The Guardian.

What comes next

The Swiss digital-rights group PersonalData.IO, which helped French Uber drivers obtain data about the algorithmic decisions affecting their work — efforts that eventually led to the Dutch investigation — said it was pleased with the outcome. Its founder, Paul-Olivier Dehaye, told The Guardian the group is preparing a class action against Uber seeking compensation for drivers. With Uber appealing, a final resolution could still be years away, and past cases suggest the eventual amount paid may be lower than the headline figure.

Why it matters

The GDPR prohibits decisions made solely by automated systems when they have a significant impact on a person's life, such as on their employment; such decisions require meaningful human review and a way to challenge the outcome. This fine is one of the clearest signals yet that regulators will attach near-record penalties to violations of that principle, and it lands in a context where the stakes are unusually direct: platform workers whose income depends entirely on an algorithmic gatekeeper.

For any company using automated systems to restrict, suspend or terminate user accounts at scale — fraud detection, trust and safety, rating-based quality controls — the decision treats "a human must be able to review this" as an enforceable legal requirement rather than a best practice. And with PersonalData.IO preparing a compensation claim on behalf of drivers, the fine may be only the first layer of liability. Individual damages claims following regulatory findings could prove to be the more durable consequence of building systems that cut people off from their livelihoods without a human in the loop.