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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Business
Robert Booth UK technology editor

Delivery apps urged to lift lid on ‘black-box algorithms’ affecting UK couriers

JustEat and Deliveroo couriers
The UK’s three dominant platforms have a combined annual turnover of almost £9bn. Photograph: Gary Calton/The Observer

Takeaway delivery apps are facing pressure to crack open the black-box algorithms that govern the work of more than 100,000 couriers in the UK and reveal more about how decisions are made on pay and access to jobs.

A coalition including the TUC, Amnesty International, couriers’ unions and the campaign group Privacy International claim the opaque use of algorithms is “automating exploitation”. They say withholding vital information from couriers about their work is “creating precarity, stress, and misery”.

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