Extract from committee stage (Commons) of the Data Protection and Digital Information (No. 2) Bill - May 16

Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab):...I will end with an example of the real-life consequences of employment and data laws lagging behind technology. As was revealed by a report by the Worker Info Exchange just last month, 11 Just Eat couriers in the UK were recently robotically fired after receiving allegations of fraudulent activity identified by an automated system. According to the report, these workers were falsely accused of receiving “undeserved financial gain” relating to nominal waiting time payments at restaurants. Just Eat argued that the workers left the restaurant while continuing to claim waiting fees. However, GPS evidence showed that workers had stayed in the vicinity of the restaurant, usually in the car park. In each case, the worker collected the food and completed the delivery, and the average value of the alleged undeserved payments justifying the robo-firings was just £1.44. Cases such as those, in which real livelihoods are impacted and rights infringed for the sake of profit margins, can and must be avoided...

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