Uber shared 12 million users' data with U.S. regulators in six months

Uber released its first ever transparency report Tuesday, sharing information on how much data U.S. law enforcement agencies and regulators requested during the second half of last year. The taxi aggregator said the company provided information on more than 12 million users — both riders and drivers — to U.S. regulators between July and December of 2015.

In its transparency report, Uber said it shared details of trips with airport authorities and law enforcement agencies, but majority trip data with regulatory bodies. Uber said in its report data on 11.6 million riders and 583,000 drivers was shared with regulators, and airport authorities received information on 1.6 million riders and 156,000 drivers.

Uber said the information it shared with the U.S. government and regulators was on trips, trip requests, pickup and drop locations, fares, vehicles and drivers. Out of 415 requests from the government agencies, most of which came from state governments, Uber said it provided data in nearly 85 percent cases.

"In many cases they send blanket requests without explaining why the information is needed, or how it will be used. And while this kind of trip data doesn't include personal information, it can reveal patterns of behavior — and is more than regulators need to do their jobs, [sic]" Uber wrote in a post on Medium. "We hope our Transparency Report will lead to a public debate about the types and amounts of information regulated services should be required to provide to their regulators, and under what circumstances."

Uber said in most cases the law-enforcement requests were related to investigations of fraud and stolen credit cards. But the post did not mention anything about rape or sexual assault, a grey area for Uber which has been under tight scrutiny.

Uber told Fortune it would release transparency reports every six months, joining tech giants such as Google, Apple and Facebook, who regularly release such reports, NPR reported. The cab-hailing service said it had not received any requests from the FBI on national security matters, nor any court orders under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

"We hope our Transparency Report will lead to a public debate about the types and amounts of information regulated services should be required to provide to their regulators, and under what circumstances," Uber wrote in its Medium post.