NYC chauffeurs challenge city’s ride-hail data tracking at Second Circuit

Filed 53m ago · Via Courthouse News · The Buffoon Desk

THIS STORY IS SCORED

Evil March

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Kidfly182 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

Wheely USA, a premium ride-hailing app, asked the Second Circuit to revive its challenge to New York City rules requiring for-hire vehicle operators to hand the Taxi and Limousine Commission monthly, trip-level data including precise pickup and drop-off locations, times, and driver IDs.

A district judge previously ruled the industry closely regulated with a diminished privacy expectation, dismissing Wheely's suit with prejudice. Wheely's lawyer argued FHVs differ from quasi-public taxis and invoked the Supreme Court's Patel decision protecting hoteliers' business records from warrantless inspection; the city countered that location data is simply the transaction itself.

The three-judge panel, which included a Trump appointee who pressed Wheely on the industry's regulatory history, did not rule from the bench.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

There is a real question buried under the fancy car service branding, which is how much of anybody's daily movements a government gets to keep on file just because a meter was running. The city's argument that pickup and drop-off is simply the transaction has some plain logic to it. Whether that logic should extend to a database of a stranger's every errand is exactly what a court, not a press release, ought to decide.

Source: Read the original at Courthouse News → Scored: Evil March · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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