InvestigationThe company has used, in France and other countries, a technique allowing it to remotely lock its computers during visits by the police, while increasing political pressure.
Uber’s legal director for Europe didn’t even take the time to sign his email. On November 17, 2014, while agents from the Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Prevention (DGCCRF) were raiding the company’s Paris premises, Zac de Kievit merely four words: “Cut off access immediately. » Thirteen minutes later, one of the company’s engineers informs him that he has complied. In the process, the lawyer reassures his hierarchy: “The DGCCRF searched our offices. Access has been cut off. »
It took Uber just minutes to employ one of its most effective techniques for preventing states from poking their noses into its business: the one its employees internally dub « kill switch » (” Emergency stop button “). It consists in cutting off the access of the computers of one of its subsidiaries to the group’s internal files and systems in order to prevent the authorities – who, in 2014 and 2015, search the company at regular intervals – from recovering the data which interest to advance their investigations concerning, depending on the case, potential tax evasion, the illegal exercise of a taxi activity or the relationship of subordination between the company and its drivers.
“Uber Files”, an international investigation
“Uber Files” is an investigation based on thousands of internal Uber documents sent by an anonymous source to the British daily The Guardianand forwarded to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and 42 media partners, including The world.
Emails, presentations, meeting minutes… These 124,000 documents, dated from 2013 to 2017, offer a rare dive into the mysteries of a start-up which was then seeking to establish itself in cities around the world despite a regulatory context. unfavorable. They detail how Uber has used, in France as elsewhere, all the tricks of lobbying to try to change the law to its advantage.
The “Uber Files” also reveal how the Californian group, determined to impose itself by a fait accompli and, if necessary, by operating illegally, has implemented practices deliberately playing with the limits of the law, or which may amount to judicial obstruction of the investigations of which he was the subject.
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The “Uber Files” show that Uber, on the initiative of its highest executives, used this technique at least twelve times between November 2014 and December 2015 in an attempt to thwart judicial and administrative investigations in several countries, including France. In some jurisdictions, including France, where it has been used six times, this activity may amount to obstruction. If certain uses of this kill switch had already been mentioned in the press, the revelations of the Monde provide new details on its use, particularly in France. The documents that we have explored above all contradict the defense of Uber, which has always explained that it collaborates with the investigators and denied in front of the American justice to indulge in such practices.
Concretely, this kill switch has two aspects: the possibility of cutting off the access of one or more employees to the internal tools of the company (documents, e-mails, databases, etc.) but also that of locking computers remotely, which become unusable . On paper, this feature can be used legitimately, in case of theft or loss of hardware. However, hundreds of internal messages that we have been able to consult show the extent to which the use of this process, which has become a reflex in the event of an investigation carried out against the company, has been diverted.
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