Court tells Uber to reinstate five UK drivers sacked by automated process

Uber has been ordered to reinstate five British drivers who were struck off from its ride-hailing app by robot technology. The five drivers, backed by the App Drivers & Couriers Union (ADCU) and the campaign group Worker Info Exchange, argued that they had been wrongly accused of fraudulent activity based on mistaken information from Uber's technology, and that the company had failed to provide the drivers with proper evidence to support the allegations. In a judgment published on Wednesday, the district court of Amsterdam – where Uber's European headquarters is located – said the ride-hailing app should reinstate the five British drivers, and one Dutch driver, because the decisions had been "based solely on automated processing, including profiling". The judgment was made by default, as Uber did not attend the hearing; the company said it had been unaware of the legal action until last week. The court said Uber should pay a penalty of €5,000 (£4,300) for each day that it had failed to comply with the order to reinstate the drivers, which was made in February, up to a maximum of €50,000, as well as €100,474 in damages.