Uber may face fines in EU for keeping data breach secret

Additionally, the names and driver's licence numbers of around 600,000 Uber drivers from the US were hacked.

The breach had been kept secret, and Uber did not notify the affected consumers or regulators. Moreover, according to Bloomberg, the company paid the hackers a sum of $100,000 (€85,000) to keep quiet.

Khosrowshahi did not specify whether data from European customers were also involved.

When approached by this website, Uber did not want to comment on the record.

An Uber source told EUobserver that the company was in the process of notifying government authorities, and was not able to give more details until that was over.

However, given that the company last year said it had some 40 million monthly active users, it can be expected that European consumers will be affected.

If that is the case, then the company could face fines under the Dutch Data Protection Act, because it is registered in Amsterdam.

Since 1 January 2016, the Dutch legislation includes a data breach notification obligation.

A spokeswoman for the Dutch Data Protection Authority told this website that companies are obliged to report data breaches to the authority "without delay".

She could not comment on the Uber case and said that whether a company is fined for not reporting a data breach depended "on the context".

In cases where sensitive personal data is involved, companies are also required to inform the affected consumers.

Uber said that the information to which hackers acquired access, "included names, email addresses and mobile phone numbers", which may not be seen as 'sensitive'.

If the Dutch Data Protection Authority determines that Uber has broken the Dutch law, the company could face a fine of up to €820,000 – almost ten times what it reportedly paid the hackers.

General data protection regulation

But the bill could have been much higher had the incident happened after 25 May 2018, when new EU data protection legislation comes into force.

The general data protection regulation (GDPR) will make it much more expensive for companies to act like Uber did.

From then on all companies and organisations which collect data from EU citizens, should inform the responsible data protection authority in case of a data breach.

If such a breach is "likely to result in a high risk to the rights and freedoms" of those citizens, they must also be informed.

Names, e-mail addresses, and phone numbers may not fall in that category, but driver's licence numbers almost certainly will.

Failing to report breaches of sensitive personal data after 25 May 2018, could lead to a fine of up to €10 million, or two percent of the company's annual turnover, whichever is higher.

In Uber's case, the latter would have amounted to around €110 million.

Beyond that, the case is likely to do damage to Uber's reputation in Europe.

The company was recently labelled as transport company by one of the EU's highest lawyers, and it has been the subject of many controversies over the past few years.