LEGISLATION WATCH- Parliament compromises on user data sharing in Ride-hailing Apps Act: A House of Representatives subcommittee charged with reviewing the Ride-hailing Apps Act amended yesterday the bill’s most controversial clause, scrapping a requirement that would have forced ride-hailing companies to store user data in Egypt and share them with the authorities. The sub-committee — which is made up of the heads of parliament’s committees on ICT, transportation, and national security — has instead made it mandatory for companies to handover data only as requested by authorities, Transportation Committee chair Hisham Abdel Wahed tells Al Shorouk. The move addresses the biggest complaint Uber and Careem representatives have made against the law, who said that the article violates user privacy and is not feasible to implement. The Egyptian Council of State itself had called the constitutionality of the article into question.

Gov’t approves of new amendments: The Ismail Cabinet approved the amendments, after it failed to address these concerns before submitting the bill to the House, as it rushed to legalize ride-hailing operations in Egypt in light of an Administrative Court ruling last month suspending licenses for Uber and Careem. Both companies had been given legal cover to operate until the law passes after the Court of Urgent Matters suspended the March ruling.

These recent victories for Uber in Egypt come as the company’s legal standing in other markets took a hit. The EU top court ruled on Tuesday that France is entitled to bring criminal proceedings against Uber’s local managers for running an illegal taxi service, Reuters reports. This latest case concerning Uber’s use of unlicensed drivers as part of its UberPOP service, follows one last year by the Court of Justice of the European Union, which classified the company as a transportation service and not a digital service.