In sexual assault data row, Ubers fine reduced to $150,000 from $59 million

Uber, on Thursday, struck a deal with a California regulator to drastically reduce a substantial fine against the taxi aggregator for not being able to hand over data on sexual assaults incident on its platform.

According to a report in CNN, the California Public Utilities Commission had fined Uber $59 million in December 2020. The Commission had further threatened to suspend its license to operate in the state of California after Uber failed to provide them with a request for sexual assault data.

However, after the new deal, the fine has been brought down to $150,000, CNN reported.

As per the report, Uber, under the terms of the deal, agreed to give them data on sexual assault incidents that would be anonymous. They would also be giving individuals reporting such incidents the ability to opt-in to being contacted by the CPUC in the future.

As per the new deal, Uber also agreed to put in more money into the issue and agreed to contribute $5 million to the California Victims Compensation Board and $4 million towards developments of industry-wide efforts to cut down on such incidents.

Uber has agreed to deposit the combined $9 million with the CPUC’s Fiscal Office, CNN reported.

The reduced fine, according to the agreement, also includes the future comprehensive data requests associated with sexual violence that should be issued to the industry as a whole.

“We’ve been able to find a path forward that preserves the privacy and agency of sexual assault survivors. We look forward to continued collaboration with the Commission to shine a light on this societal issue and help set the standard,” Tony West, senior vice president and chief legal officer at Uber, was quoted as saying by CNN.

The CPUC said that it could still reject the settlement or propose alternative terms.

All of this comes from Uber’s safety transparency report that they had published in December 2019. The safety report revealed that the company received nearly 6,000 reports of sexual assault in 2017 and 2018 on its platform.