Headey’s name was included in an “approach network” of Uber’s key lobbying targets, including Boris Johnson, the then mayor of London, contained in Uber files, leaked to the Guardian. The files also reveal how a senior employee in London used a tracking tool codenamed ‘Heaven’ and ‘God View’ to track a colleague’s travel. The app allowed Uber staff to track the movements of people traveling in an Uber vehicle. Q&A
What are Uber records?
projection The Uber Files is a global investigation based on a trove of 124,000 documents leaked to the Guardian by Mark MacGann, Uber’s former chief lobbyist in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The data consists of emails, iMessages and WhatsApp exchanges between the top executives of the Silicon Valley giant, as well as memos, presentations, notebooks, briefing documents and invoices. The leaked records cover 40 countries and span from 2013 to 2017, the period when Uber was aggressively expanding around the world. They reveal how the company broke the law, deceived police and regulators, exploited violence against drivers and secretly lobbied governments around the world. To facilitate a global public interest investigation, the Guardian shared the data with 180 journalists in 29 countries through the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). The investigation was managed and led by the Guardian with the ICIJ. In a statement, Uber said: “We have not and will not condone past behavior that is clearly inconsistent with our current values. Instead, we’re asking the public to judge us based on what we’ve done in the last five years and what we’ll do in the years to come.” Thanks for your response. There is nothing in the records to suggest that the surveillance tool was used to track Hendy’s rides. However, a reference to the leaked documents raises questions about how Uber knew about the use of its app. Dated March 2014, the memo describes how Hendy, who was Transport for London (TfL) commissioner at the time, “used an Uber car twice last week”. Hendy told the Guardian that he had not informed Uber of his use of the app and believed the memo raised questions about whether the company knew about it because of the “illegal use of its records”. “If they had looked at their records and seen that I used an Uber car twice, that would of course be an illegal use of their records,” he said. He said this wouldn’t be difficult to do as I only use apps like Uber and taxi apps under my real name – and it’s not surprising given what is generally known about their behavior at the time. Hendy said he regularly used apps such as Uber because he believed he should have experience of services licensed by TfL. Meanwhile, the records also show that Uber’s Heaven tool was used at least once in its UK office. Until now its use on British soil had not been reported. In October 2014, Jo Bertram – then Uber’s regional director for Northern Europe – appears to have used the software to track a colleague’s journey. Mark MacGann, an internal lobbyist, and the source of the Uber files, emailed to say he was running late for a meeting, complaining he was facing “heavy” traffic from London City Airport. “I’m watching you in Heaven – I already saw the ETA [estimated time of arrival],” wrote Bertram. MacGann replied, “This tool scares the hell out of me.” In relation to the possible access to Hendy’s files, Ravi Naik, lead data protection expert at data rights agency AWO, said: “If true, there is cause for serious concern about the legality of Uber’s processing. It’s hard to see how it could be legal for Uber to use its systems in this way. The conclusion is that Uber used personal information in non-transparent ways, contrary to its legal obligation to be transparent and to use data only for specific purposes. “The fact that this was even possible strongly suggests that Uber’s systems and practices are inconsistent with the basic legal principles enshrined in the data protection regime.” Getting in touch Bertram, who left Uber in 2017, declined to comment on the use of Heaven, which Uber is understood to have allowed staff to use at the time. There is no indication that he was involved in the possible access to Hendy’s files or that he used Uber’s tools to track anyone else’s movements. Uber said it stopped using Heaven in 2017 and could find no records of Hendy’s trips being tracked using the tool. Heaven’s existence came to light in 2014, when Forbes reported that it used the tool as a party trick to impress guests at an event hosted by the company’s then-CEO Travis Kalanick. Two years later, a former employee who sued the company for discrimination alleged that staff abused Heaven to spy on celebrities including Beyoncé, high-profile politicians and even acquaintances such as ex-boyfriends and boyfriends.
