London: Is Uber Losing Their License Or Helping With Tackling Air Pollution?

21

October

2017

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Two different, both contradictory and interesting, new messages related to Uber in London. Both messages reached the news approximately a month ago. In September, London announced that Uber’s request for a new license in the capital city of England has been rejected by The Transport of London because of the following reason: ‘Uber is not a fit and proper private car operator’ (Butler, S. & Topham, G. 2017). Uber currently has 3.5 million users in London and 40.000 licensed drivers. Uber can still continue their services until it has exhausted the appeals process, which could take months. This is case since Uber’s chief executive announced that the company would appeal against this decision of The Transport of London. He stated the following as a reaction on this occurrence: “The truth is that there is a high cost to a bad reputation and thus really matters what people think of us, especially in a global business like ours” (Solon, O. 2017). Uber itself also posted tweets with the request to sign a petition to ensure London with more, not fewer, transportation options (Uber, 2017).

Contradictory to above described rejection is Uber’s own announcement, in September as well. Uber decided that Uber drivers will be banned from using cars that are not hybrid or fully electric in London from 2020 (Vaughan, A. 2017). According to Vaughan, A. (2017) London has been selected for this plan since the dirty air causes almost 9.500 deaths a year there. Uber also announced that this will most likely be mandatory for all Uber drivers in whole England as well before 2025. Uber’s 40,000 licensed drivers in London can receive a financial assistance from Uber to switch to a fully electric or hybrid car of up to £5,000 what in my opinion reflects how important this decision is for Uber.

Shall above two described news messages be pure coincidence or is it possibly related to each it? In my opinion Uber hopes to increase their chance of getting a new license in London by this decision (i.e. goodwill).

 

  • Butler, S. & Topham, G. (2017) ‘Uber stripped of London licence due to lack of corporate responsibility’ Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/22/uber-licence-transport-for-london-tfl

 

  • Solon, O. (2017) ‘New Uber CEO meets staff as emotional Travis Kalanick gets standing ovation’ Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/aug/30/uber-new-ceo-dara-khosrowshahi-all-staff-meeting

 

  • Uber (2017) Uber Twitter account. Retrieved from: https://twitter.com/Uber/status/911366169310896128?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ftechnology%2F2017%2Fsep%2F22%2Fuber-licence-transport-for-london-tfl

 

  • Vaughan, A. (2017) ‘Uber: London drivers must use hybrid or fully electric cars from 2020’ Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/08/uber-london-hybrid-fully-electric-cars-2020-vehicles

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Self-Driving Cars: Safer Perhaps, But Are We Aware Of Our Threatened Privacy?

21

October

2017

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Stepping into your car, not behind the wheel, but in the backseat of your vehicle. As you close the door the car says in a humanoid voice: “Good morning, where do you want to travel to today?”, after you replied your journey begins while you open your morning paper. On the way, the car tells you are passing a brand-new restaurant that serves food within your interest since the car heard your conversation with a friend a few days ago, picked up on several keywords, and knew to suggest this restaurant. Upon your agreement, a reservation has been made for upcoming Friday, since the car saw a free spot left in your agenda.

Self-driving cars are the future of the automotive industry (Urmson, C. 2008), I assume that will not be a discussion point. These driverless vehicles are going to make roads safer according to Howard, D., & Dai, D. (2014). Besides safer roads these scholars also assume self-driving cars to create a more sustainable automotive environment (lafrance, A. 2016). But on the other side these cars are building a ‘gold mine’ of personal data. “These vehicles will know where you like to come frequently, which businesses, and may very well build a profile of you” (McGowan, M. 2017). Since the future cars will make use of high-tech cameras and ultra-precise GPS data these cars will collects lots of data of the people they drive around (Lafrance, A. (2016). About this information, related to e.g. your movements, destinations, shopping behavior and social life behavior, is currently little investigation done in terms of who is going to own this data and to what extent this data can be used/bought by third parties. Furthermore, it is completely unclear how this data will be stored (McGowan, M. 2017). Questions arise such as: Is it customer’s data? Is it the car manufacturer’s data? Or is it government data?

In my opinion, it is frightening that self-driving cars are about to enter the market but there are hardly no decisions made with respect to personal data usage and storage.

McGowan, M. (2017) ‘Driverless cars: safer perhaps, but professor warns of privacy risks’ Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/22/driverless-cars-safer-perhaps-but-professor-warns-of-privacy-risks

Urmson, C. (2008). Self-driving cars and the urban challenge. IEEE Intelligent Systems, 23(2).

Howard, D., & Dai, D. (2014). Public perceptions of self-driving cars: The case of Berkeley, California. In Transportation Research Board 93rd Annual Meeting (Vol. 14, No. 4502).

Lafrance, A. (2016) ‘How Self-Driving Cars Will Threaten Privacy’. Retrieved from: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/03/self-driving-cars-and-the-looming-privacy-apocalypse/474600/

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