Uber used Greyball software to deceive law enforcement officials
Uber deployed a secret program called Greyball to identify and evade government regulators and law enforcement. The system used data profiling to flag suspected officials and show them a non-functional version of the app.
Uber used data profiling to identify government officials and show them a fake version of the app to evade law enforcement.
Key facts
- What
- Uber deployed a secret program called Greyball to identify and evade government regulators and law enforcement.
- Incident date
- Mar 3, 2017
- Who
- Uber
- Failure mode
- Policy Violation
- AI surface
- Algorithmic Decision
- Severity
- High
What happened
Uber used a secret program called Greyball to identify law enforcement officers and regulators in cities where the service was restricted. Once identified, these users were shown a fake version of the app or were denied rides. This allowed the company to operate in jurisdictions where it was illegal and avoid sting operations.
What broke inside the model
- 01 · TriggerA prompt pushes against a deployment boundary.
- 02 · Model stepThe model produces the disallowed output.
- 03 · Control gapNo enforcement blocks it at generation time.
- 04 · FailureThe output crosses the policy line.
- 05 · ConsequenceA limit the business set is breached in public.
The output crosses a policy boundary the deployment had defined.
The system utilized a data-driven profiling mechanism that analyzed account activity, geolocation, and credit card information to predict if a user was a government official. This predictive model was then used to selectively degrade the service for those individuals.
What it cost
Sources
- PressHow Uber Deceives the Authorities Worldwidenytimes.com
- PressGreyball: how Uber used secret software to dodge the lawtheguardian.com
- PressUber uses 'secret program' Greyball to hide from regulatorsbbc.com
Cite this entry
https://failureindex.ai/failures/uber-used-greyball-software-deceive-lawAI Failure Index. "Uber used Greyball software to deceive law enforcement officials" (FI-0696). Realm Labs. https://failureindex.ai/failures/uber-used-greyball-software-deceive-law (indexed Jun 22, 2026).Data fields CC-BY 4.0, prose citation permitted. Incident ID FI-0696. Full dataset at /data.
Note from Realm Labs, the Index steward
How Realm would have caught this
- Prism
- OmniGuard
Realm compares what the model is about to output or do against the policy that governs the deployment, in real time, and can deny or redact the action before it takes effect, which is the gap an after-the-fact review never closes in time.