One of the world’s largest rideshare services has filed a complaint against the City of Calgary for a change it’s considering making to a vehicle-for-hire bylaw.
Uber says it filed a complaint against the city with Alberta’s Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner (OIPC) Tuesday.
This came just hours before a scheduled council meeting, where elected officials were set to discuss changes to the bylaw in question.
One of the changes would require rideshare apps, like Uber, to record the latitude and longitude of the location where the trip started and ended, to at least five decimal places, alongside other information such as the trip’s date and time, and the license number of the driver who provided the trip.
“With this level of detail, what can happen is that specific houses or even trees could be pinpointed,” explained Uber spokesperson Keerthana Rang. “To put this in perspective, five decimal points of location data is accurate to within 1.1 metres, which is between the width of a door frame or the length of a hockey stick.
She says this change could expose the travel patterns of people in Calgary and make it easier to identify riders, especially in a city characterized by low-density neighbourhoods and commercial spaces.
Rang also claims the city is proposing rideshare companies share details of all complaints from riders, including their name, address, and phone number, without the rider’s consent.
Uber says it’s been told by the city this information is needed to help with enforcement. But, the company claims that’s not necessary, because Uber already has a method for complaints and compliments through its app.
“Uber already provides law enforcement with detailed trip data on an ad-hoc basis as needed through a secure Public Safety Response Portal, so there’s no need to collect this information for every trip,” Rang added.
At a Dec. 19, 2024 meeting, city staff said they had yet to seek advice from the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, but that that could be done before the policy was moved forward.
The city says that transportation network companies have become so popular that they give more annual trips than taxis in Calgary.
The matter is scheduled to come before council on Tuesday.