Uber Transparency Reports Kick Off With Data On Second Half Of 2015

Uber has released its first transparency report, putting it among the ranks of dozens of companies that have rolled out similar reports. In this case, Uber's transparency report has details on the latter half of 2015, letting the public see what kind of requests were received and what kind of information the company ended up supplying to others. As well, Uber says it is the first company to include regulatory requests among its transparency report information.

According to Uber, its transparency report includes figures on "the scope" of data it gave to both local regulators and law enforcement agencies throughout the United States. As far as regulatory reporting goes, Uber received a total of 33 requests during the second half of 2016, with all the requests affecting a total of 11,644,000 riders and 583,000 drivers.

Of those requests, Uber was required to give over data 21% of the time, and it gave away data 42.4% of the time after "negotiating [a] narrower scope." In 36.7% of instances, Uber says it gave data "as required," having been unable to "narrow [the] scope" of the request. California, New York City, North Dakota, and Tacoma and Seattle, Washington are the places where Uber was hit with hard no-compromise requests.

As well, Uber received a total of 34 requests from airport authorities, and it complied with 100% of them. Law enforcement request were the highest, though, totaling 408 in total with 31.8% being fully complied with, 52.8% being partially complied with, and 15.4% of them being either withdrawn or found to have no data.

Of those requests, 368 of them were from state authorities and 47 of them were from federal law enforcements agencies. Of the government requests, Uber received 138 subpoenas, 42 search warrants, 15 emergency orders, and 10 court orders. Some data was supplied in a minimum of 82% of the requests in each category.

SOURCE: Uber