It turns out that the CEO himself ordered the use of a 'kill switch' that interferes with the investigation by the Uber-related confidential material 'Uber file'

More than 124,000 confidential materials called 'Uber files' have been obtained by the British Great Letter The Guardian and shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and the world's press to report a lot of news about Uber. Among them, Uber used a 'kill switch' 12 times in at least 6 countries to block access to the server and not give evidence to the authorities when the office was investigated. understood.

The Uber Files-ICIJ

Uber bosses told staff to use'kill switch' during raids to stop police seeing data | Uber | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/jul/10/uber-bosses-told-staff-use-kill-switch-raids-stop-police-seeing-data

The 'Uber' file contains 2013-2017 emails, text messages, in-house presentations and other documents.

Uber's deployment and use of 'kill switches' has been known from cases in Canada and Hong Kong, but with 'Uber files', its use is more widespread and how senior executives are. It was also revealed that he was involved in.

In late 2014, Uber's Lyon and Paris offices were swooped in by authorities in quick succession. At this time, in Paris, where the investigation was conducted three days after Lyon, 'lessons learned' were used, and immediately after the raid, legal officer Zack de Kiwitt forced the Danish engineer to terminate access. Was sent, and 13 minutes later, there was a reply stating that the response was completed.

On the other hand, in a forced investigation into the Brussels office in Belgium in March 2015, the authorities took measures to prevent contact with the United States where the data was stored. For this reason, Kiewitt reports, 'Our team was detained and had no time to use the kill switch.'

However, this experience in Brussels was a great reflection, and Uber strengthened its countermeasures. After that, when the police arrived at the office, the screen became black as if the power of the PC was turned off in a few seconds. In an investigation conducted against Uber headquarters in Amsterdam, the Netherlands in April 2015, it was found that the founder CEO Travis Kalanick also sent an email saying 'press the kill switch as soon as possible'. I am.

In addition, various things other than this kill switch are revealed in the 'Uber file'.

For example, in 2015 Uber was given some service outages in France, but Uber Europe's chief flobiist Mark McGann consulted with President Macron a few hours later. Was corrected.

Uber executives are also known to have met with President Macron, as well as Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu (then), Ireland's Prime Minister Kenny (then), Estonia's President Irves, and Russia's Oligarchs. When the World Economic Forum was held in Dajos, Switzerland in 2016, CEO Karanick had the opportunity to meet with then-Vice President Joe Biden of the United States, and Uber is changing the way cities and people work better. And strongly appeal. It is recorded that Biden, who was impressed, changed the content of the keynote to something that emphasizes Uber's global influence.

In addition, Uber's approach to launching services before the government approves the business has been hostile to the competing taxi industry, where Uber drivers have been violent, vehicles burned, and customers. Although there were cases of damage, it has been pointed out that Calanic CEOs and others were using this violence by leaking it to the media.

In addition, Uber spokesman Jill Hazelbaker is a company that has not lacked reports of mistakes made by Uber before 2017, and finally as 'the most notorious liquidation in the history of American companies', a huge amount of public He admits that there were 'mistakes' that led to oversight, numerous attention-grabbing proceedings, multiple government investigations, and the dismissal of multiple senior executives.

On the other hand, CEO Karanick and others have been replaced by CEO Dara Khosrowshahi due to this 2017 'liquidation', and 90% of the employees who belong to the company joined the company after becoming the new CEO, 'literally, Uber is different. Became a company of. ' He does not make excuses for past actions that do not match current values, and instead of not doing so, he wants us to judge what we have done in the last five years and what we will do in the future.

Statement on the ICIJ Investigation | Uber Newsroom
https://www.uber.com/newsroom/icij-statement/