Regulators walked into Uber’s offices just to see the computers darken before his eyes.
July 10, 2022 at 12:00 EDT
(Illustration by Lucy Naland / Washington Post; Wako Remko / ANP / AFP / Getty; Uber screenshots; iStock) Comment on this story
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Twenty minutes after authorities stormed Uber’s Amsterdam office in April 2015, Ligea Wells ’computer screen mysteriously went blank. The executive assistant played he sent a text warning his boss of another strange fact on an already eventful day.
“Hello!” wrote a message that is part of a fund of more than 124,000 previously undisclosed Uber records. “My laptop shut down after acting in a fun way.”
But the behavior of his computer was no mystery to some of his superiors.
San Francisco-based CEO Travis Kalanick had ordered Amsterdam’s computer systems to be cut off from Uber’s internal network, making the data inaccessible to authorities as they attacked its headquarters. European, as the documents show.
“Please press the kill switch as soon as possible,” Kalanick had sent an email, ordering a subordinate to block office laptops and other devices from Uber’s internal systems. “Access must be closed to AMS,” referring to Amsterdam.
Uber’s use of what the experts said the “The Death Switch” was a blatant example of how the company used technological tools to prevent authorities from successfully investigating the company’s business practices, as it disrupted the global taxi industry, according to documents .
During that time, as Uber’s valuation exceeded $ 50 billion, government raids occurred so frequently that the company distributed a Dawn Raid Manual to employees on how to respond. It contained more than 2,600 words with 66 vignettes. They include “Move regulators to a meeting room that contains no files” and “Never leave regulators alone.”
That document, like the Exchanges of texts and emails related to the Amsterdam attack are part of the Uber Files, an 18.7 gigabyte database obtained by the Guardian and shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, a non-profit newsroom in Washington who helped lead the project and dozens of other news organizations, including The Washington Post. The files, which run from 2013 to 2017, include 83,000 emails and other communications, presentations and direct messages.
They show that Uber developed extensive systems to confuse official inquiries, going far beyond what had been known about its efforts to engage regulators, government inspectors and the police. Far from simply developing software to connect drivers and customers looking for travel, Uber took advantage of it technological capabilities in many cases to gain a covert advantage over the authorities.
Read the key points of the Uber Files research
In written answers to the questions, Uber acknowledged that the company made numerous missteps during the time covered by the files, a time when Kalanick, who was fired by the board in 2017, ran the company. “We don’t have or will make excuses for past behavior that is clearly not in line with our current values,” said the company’s senior vice president, Jill Hazelbaker. “Instead, we ask the public to judge us for what we’ve done over the last five years and what we’ll do in the next few years.”
Devon Spurgeon, a spokeswoman for Kalanick, said in a statement to The Post that Uber’s expansion efforts were led by more than 100 people in dozens of countries, with the approval of legal, policy and compliance of the company.
“Uber, like most other companies operating overseas, used tools that protect the intellectual property and privacy of its customers and ensure that due process rights are respected in the event of an out-of-court raid. Spurgeon said. They are a common business practice and not designed or implemented to “obstruct justice.” These security protocols do not delete any data or information and all decisions about their use involved were reviewed and approved by the legal and regulatory departments of Notably, Mr. Kalanick did not create, direct or oversee these systems created by the legal and compliance departments and has never been charged in any jurisdiction for obstruction of justice or related crime. “
According to documents and interviews with former employees, the company used a program called Greyball to prevent authorities from calling cars and potentially confiscating and arresting their drivers.
He used a technology called “geofencing” that, based on location data, blocked normal use of the app near police stations and other places where authorities might be working. And he used corporate network management software to remotely cut off computers ’access to network files after authorities confiscated them.
The Post could not find out if the authorities finally got access to all the data they were looking for in these cases. Bloomberg News, which first reported on the slaughter switch in 2018, reported that in at least one case, Uber delivered records that were not initially available to authorities after producing a second search warrant.
While some of these technologies have been reported earlier, Uber’s files offer the most comprehensive and behind-the-scenes account of how Uber executives ordered their deployment to take advantage of the authorities.
Uber discussed or invoked the slaughter switch, codenamed Ripley, more than a dozen times in at least six countries over a two-year period, according to new documents and previous reports on the tool. References to Greyball appear repeatedly, in countries such as Denmark, Belgium and Germany. The documents show that, at least in some cases, Uber’s legal department in San Francisco was aware of the use of the slaughter switch.
Uber employees sometimes expressed concern about the use of technology tools amid multiplied government investigations. In a text exchange in January 2016, officials in Europe discussed the pros and cons of creating an alternate version of the Uber app.
“The point is more to avoid enforcement,” wrote Thibaud Simphal, then CEO of Uber in France.
Simphal, who is now Uber’s global head of sustainability, said in a recent statement: “From 2014 to 2017, Uber has been in the news for both its positive impact on mobility and the economic opportunities it has created as for certain practices that do not.comply with the frameworks and requirements of the countries where we have developed.We have publicly acknowledged.Our current CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, has been transparent about these issues since her arrival and has made reforms significant to the company culture “.
Uber’s tactics were born out of more than stubbornness. For top Uber executives, they were existential. What started out as a simple idea in 2008 — offering on-demand taxi service in private cars — had become a true Silicon Valley “unicorn,” a start-up that multiplied rapidly in 2015 in value, but that hemorrhaged money, requiring regularly. investor cash infusions.
He faced fierce rivalry from companies such as Didi in China, Yandex in Russia, Ola in South Asia and Lyft in the United States. Uber competed in part by attracting customers to its app with big discounts and recruited drivers with generous incentives.
The business model was also based on overcoming legal barriers to compete with a taxi industry that was heavily regulated in much of the world. Authorities dictated the colors of competing vehicles, licensing and insurance rules for drivers, and how and when drivers worked.
Uber insisted on designating its drivers as independent contractors rather than full-time employees. The company said the distinction offered drivers more job flexibility, but also freed Uber from the obligation to pay them costly benefits while limiting its own legal liability.
Clashes also developed between the authorities and the company over their business practices. Sometimes Uber would not comply with cessation and withdrawal orders if it believed immediate enforcement actions were unlikely, two former employees said, speaking on condition of anonymity to describe sensitive issues.
“I have no comment on whether that was the case then, but it’s certainly not how we would respond today,” Uber spokesman Noah Edwardsen said.
These clashes forced him to ask long-standing questions the regulations of the taxi in sight. Meanwhile, negative articles about arrests and other clashes raised public awareness of the service, a former employee told The Post.
Kalanick emanated an open hostility towards the taxi industry, which she dubbed “Big Taxi,” and regulators, she argued, protected it from competition, according to documents and news reports.
Uber took advantage of violent attacks on its drivers to put pressure on politicians
In the period covered in the documents, Uber was embarking on an aggressive expansion into countries such as Spain, France, the Netherlands and Belgium, many of which banned toll transportation in private vehicles.
Regulators entered, conducting a raid after a raid, in an effort to prove Uber was breaking the law, while police took bites to catch drivers on the spot.
Inside Uber’s offices, however, law enforcement officers were sometimes surprised to find that computers, up to two dozen simultaneously, would turn black. This was the experience of an individual near a raid in Paris on March 16, 2015, who spoke on condition of anonymity to frankly describe the events.
That same month in Amsterdam, the European center of the company, Company executives were concerned about impending crackdown and a possible raid by transport authorities to gather evidence, the documents show.
Uber was making preparations that included moving documents off-site and compiling a list of office workers “to make sure a computer killing gets everyone,” according to an email from Zac de Kievit, a European lawyer. director …