What are Uber files?

The Uber Files refers to a four-month long investigation based on more than 124,000 confidential documents from the US ride-hailing company that were leaked to Britain’s Guardian newspaper. The files were leaked by Mark MacGann, Uber’s former chief lobbyist in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. 

What do the leaked documents contain?

The leaked records contain sensitive emails, iMessages and WhatsApp conversations between top Uber executives, bureaucrats and world leaders in nearly 30 countries between 2013 and 2017-- a period when Uber expanded aggressively.

When Uber’s controversial co-founder Travis Kalanick resigned as CEO in June 2017, the company was operating in more than 600 locations.

The Guardian made the leaked records available to 180 journalists working with 42 media organisations in 29 countries through the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).

The data allegedly reveal how the company circumvented the law, misled police and regulators, exploited violence against drivers and secretly lobbied governments around the world.

Whistleblower MacGann said he decided to speak out because he believed Uber knowingly flouted laws in dozens of countries and misled people about the economic benefits to drivers of the company’s gig economy model.

The investigation found that Uber used a so-called “kill switch” to prevent police and regulators from accessing its sensitive data from its IT systems during raids.

The company deployed this tactic at least 12 times in France, the Netherlands, Belgium, India, Hungary and Romania. During a police raid in Amsterdam, Kalanick personally shot the order to use “kill switch ASAP”.

The Uber Files also claimed to have found that the company saved millions of dollars in taxes by routing profits through Bermuda and other offshore tax havens.

When taxi drivers hit the streets to protest against Uber in France, Kalanick allegedly saw it as an opportunity. Leaked communications suggested that Kalanick had allegedly texted colleagues that “violence guarantee(s) success”.

Leaked documents suggest that Emmanuel Macron, who was then the country’s economy minister, secretly helped the company in France, allowing Uber frequent and direct access to him and his staff.

In a response, a spokesperson for Kalanick said the former CEO “never suggested that Uber should take advantage of violence at the expense of driver safety.″

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‘There has been no shortage of reporting on Uber’s mistakes prior to 2017. Thousands of stories have been published, multiple books have been written – there’s even been a TV series’

Uber said its “mistakes” prior to 2017 have been widely reported and that is exactly why the company hired the new CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, to transform every aspect of how Uber operated.