Archives 13 July 2022

Twenty minutes after authorities raided Uber’s Amsterdam office in April 2015, Ligea Wells’s computer screen mysteriously went blank. The executive assistant tapped out a text warning her boss of another strange occurrence on an already eventful day.

“hi!” she typed in a message that’s part of a trove of more than 124,000 previously undisclosed Uber records. “My laptop shut down after acting funny.”

But her computer’s behavior was no mystery to some of her superiors.

Uber’s San Francisco-based chief executive, Travis Kalanick, had ordered the computer systems in Amsterdam cut off from Uber’s internal network, making data inaccessible to authorities as they raided its European headquarters, documents show.

“Please hit the kill switch ASAP,” Kalanick had emailed, ordering a subordinate to block the office laptops and other devices from Uber’s internal systems. “Access must be shut down in AMS,” referring to Amsterdam.

Uber’s use of what insiders called the “kill switch” was a brazen example of how the company employed technological tools to prevent authorities from successfully investigating the company’s business practices as it disrupted the global taxi industry, according to the documents.

During this era, as Uber’s valuation was surging past $50 billion, government raids occurred with such frequency that the company distributed a Dawn Raid Manual to employees on how to respond. It ran more than 2,600 words with 66 bullet points. They included “Move the Regulators into a meeting room that does not contain any files” and “Never leave the Regulators alone.”

That document, like the text and email exchanges related to the Amsterdam raid, are part of the Uber Files, an 18.7-gigabyte trove of data obtained by the Guardian and shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, a nonprofit newsroom in Washington that helped lead the project, and dozens of other news organizations, including The Washington Post. The files, spanning 2013 to 2017, include 83,000 emails and other communications, presentations and direct messages.

They show that Uber developed extensive systems to confound official inquiries, going well past what has been known about its efforts to trip up regulators, government inspectors and police. Far from simply developing software to connect drivers and customers seeking rides, Uber leveraged its technological capabilities in many cases to gain a covert edge over authorities.

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“Point is more to avoid enforcement,” wrote Thibaud Simphal, then general manager for Uber in France.

Senior executives involved in global operation to thwart law enforcement, leaked files reveal. Senior executives at Uber ordered the use of a “kill switch” to prevent police and regulators from accessing sensitive data during raids on its offices in at least six countries, leaked files reveal. The instructions to block authorities from accessing its IT systems were part of a sophisticated global operation by the Silicon Valley company to thwart law enforcement.

… In a message sent at 3.14pm, apparently after the raid had begun, De Kievit emailed an Uber IT engineer in Denmark, saying: “Please kill access now,” copying in executives including Kalanick and Gore-Coty, who ran Uber’s operations in western Europe. Thirteen minutes later, the technician wrote back, confirming the procedure was “done now”. This approach to what staff called “unexpected visitors” would evolve the following year after a raid in Brussels by police investigating Uber’s use of regular drivers without a cab licence, a service known at the time as “UberPop.”

More than 124,000 confidential documents leaked to the Guardian; Files expose attempts to lobby Joe Biden, Olaf Scholz and George Osborne; Emmanuel Macron secretly aided Uber lobbying in France, texts reveal; Company used ‘kill switch’ during raids to stop police seeing data; Former Uber CEO told executives ‘violence guarantees success’

Leak suggests former CEO believed there was an upside to attacks on drivers as firm campaigned for law changes. Uber broke laws, duped police and built secret lobbying operation, leak reveals. According to the Uber files, some at the company appear to have seen an upside in the attacks against drivers. When attacks occurred, Uber moved swiftly to leverage the violence in a campaign to pressure governments to rewrite laws that stymied Uber’s chances of expansion. “We keep the violence narrative going for a few days, before we offer the solution.” — Uber manager.

It was a playbook repeated in Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland, but it was perhaps most evident in France. Before dawn in Europe on 29 January, the Uber chief executive, Travis Kalanick, was messaging on how best to respond to the chaos in Paris. “Civil disobedience,” Kalanick fired off in a rapid burst of messages. “Fifteen thousand drivers … 50,000 riders … Peaceful march or sit-in.” Uber’s vice-president for communications, Rachel Whetstone, responded cautiously, noting “just fyi” that Uber’s head of public policy for Europe, Middle East and Africa, Mark MacGann, was “worried about taxi violence” against Uber drivers.