But the drivers are not Uber employees. Which is the whole point of uber existing. It is a shitty model from Uber's side - but in this case just attack the model. Outlaw gig economy and be done with it. There are enough protections in employment laws in EU.
People's lives, not just employees.
This is not true in all jurisdictions. Some places have been smart enough to see through this transparent legal fiction and declare Uber drivers to be employees, with Uber having all the relevant responsibilities toward them.
This is classic US common law loophole lawyering. That's just not how EU law works. I discussed this in depth with another commenter in this thread a while ago if you want to know more: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48707697
GDPR is not limited to employment matters.
“Such as” employment.
Given this kind of ambiguity, it seems like we need some kind of, like, procedure by which it’s decided whether Uber violated the law as written, and if so, what the consequences should be - maybe the sort of thing where we’d get experts in the law together in a room to investigate and debate the merits of each side’s argument and determine which stands up to scrutiny or not. Maybe we could have third disinterested legal expert hear both sides and make a decision. That’s really the only way to clear this whole thing up, I think.