Dutch authorities raid Uber head office in Amsterdam

The Human Environment and Transport Inspectorate raided the Uber head office in Amsterdam today.

The raid was specifically directed against UberPOP, the part of Uber that is controversial.

Uber is a world-wide service through which you can order a taxi. UberPOP is a part of Uber where you can order taxi services from drivers that are not necissarily taxi drivers, but can be private individuals. A lot of the UberPOP drivers do not have the proper licenses that taxi drivers are required to have.
Consequently, a Dutch judge declared the UberPOP service illegal in the Netherlands.

Uber has so far disregarded the judgement, saying the Dutch legislation is out of date and hinders innovation.
The Inspectorate has fined several UberPOP drivers, but Uber says it will fight these fines in court, and pay the fines for the drivers.

The Inspectorate says it has seized administration of UberPOP, in order to get insight in the size of the service.

Uber says the raid is an attempt to get company sensitive data. It calls the raid a warning for other startup companies, that there data may not be safe in the Netherlands.

Recently, regular taxi drivers have attacked and threatened UberPOP drivers, because they are angry about the false competition.