Executives at the ride-hailing company assured investors Tuesday that the near-billion-dollar European penalty for algorithmic terminations remains a highly cost-effective alternative to employing human managers.
The Dutch Data Protection Authority issued the €825 million ($914 million) fine—the second largest ever levied under the continent's GDPR regulations—after discovering Uber utilized unmonitored software to permanently deactivate drivers. Rather than appeal the decision, the technology giant reportedly incorporated the nine-figure penalty into its quarterly earnings report as a standard operating expense for avoiding direct interactions with its workforce.
By our calculations, paying the European Union a billion dollars every few years is simply the enterprise licensing fee for a fully automated human resources pipeline.
Company engineers confirmed the offending software, which analyzed driver behavior and issued permanent suspensions without human oversight, has been functioning flawlessly since its deployment. Following the ruling, the development team has reportedly shipped a minor patch that automatically routes portions of Uber’s European revenue directly to the Dutch government whenever a driver is summarily dismissed by a line of code.
In a memo to shareholders, the company noted that establishing a traditional HR department capable of reviewing individual driver appeals would have required leasing office space, providing health insurance to adjudicators, and periodically acknowledging that the drivers are human beings.
At press time, the company's financial API had seamlessly authorized the €825 million wire transfer to regulatory authorities before immediately deactivating three thousand random drivers to balance the ledger.