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FOI Uber TFL Application

Here is The response on Steve Garelick’s FOI request on Ubers Application to TFL

Below the FOI response are PDF’s of the forms.

Dear Mr Garelick,

TfL Ref: FOI-0494-1516

Thank you for your email received by us on 22 June 2015 asking for information about Uber, a licensed private hire operator.

Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act and our Information Access Policy. I can confirm we hold some of the information you require. Please accept my apologies for the delay. You asked for:

Q: A copy of the application and TfL notes concerning the application and Granting of Uber to hold a private hire operators license in London, this application was made in 2012

Please see the attached copies of Uber’s 2012 application and pre-licensing inspection report, the latter of which contains some notes.

The private hire operator licence for Uber London Ltd (reference number 7979) was granted on 31 May 2012 following its pre-licensing inspection on 28 May 2012.

In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act we are not obliged to supply some of the information on the application form as it is subject to a statutory exemption to the right of access to information under section 43 (2) commercial interests.

In this instance the exemption has been applied as disclosure of the telephone contact number for bookings provided by Uber on their initial application would be likely to prejudice the commercial interests of a third party. The phone number originally supplied by Uber on their initial application is no longer used by that company and appears to have been reallocated by a telephone service provider to a wholly unconnected small business. Release of this number to the general public could potentially generate a significant number of calls to that telephone number which would be likely to affect their ability to conduct their business. The use of this exemption is subject to an assessment of the public interest in relation to the disclosure of the information concerned. We recognise the need for openness and transparency by public authorities, but we do not consider that any quantifiable benefit would be gained by the public by releasing this number, other than to confirm that a number was supplied by Uber on their initial application. Therefore we have redacted the final four digits from the previously supplied number (020) 7689 XXXX on their application form.

Following a variation request in May 2014 Uber provided us with an updated number which is 020 3322 8237.

Please note that in accordance with TfL’s obligations under the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA) some personal data has been removed, from both the application forms and the pre-licensing inspection report, as required by section 40(2) of the FOI Act. This is because disclosure of this personal data would be a breach of the DPA, specifically the first principle of the DPA which requires all processing of personal data to be fair and lawful. It would not be fair to disclose this personal information when the individuals have no expectation it would be disclosed and TfL has not satisfied one of the conditions of Schedule 2 of the Data Protection Act which would make the processing ‘fair’.

If this is not the information you are looking for, or if you are unable to access it for some reason, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to appeal as well as information on copyright and what to do if you would like to re-use any of the information we have disclosed.

Yours sincerely

| FOI Case Officer
FOI Case Management Team
Transport for London

UBER – PRE Lic_Redacted
UBER APP – redacted

Posted: 3rd September 2015

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