New York judge rules data sharing for food delivery customers ‘unconstitutional’

A New York City law which requires food delivery companies to share their customer’s data with restaurants has been ruled unconstitutional, according to a report from Reuters.

US District Judge Analisa Torres in Manhattan ruled in favour of DoorDash, Grubhub and Uber Eats, and said the law violated the First Amendment by improperly regulating commercial speech.

New York City passed the law in summer 2021 as a way of helping restaurants recover from the Covid-19 pandemic. According to Reuters, delivery companies needed to provide restaurants with customers’ names, delivery addresses, email addresses and phone numbers, as well as order contents.

The delivery companies argued that the law compromised the privacy rights of customers as well as putting their data security at risk. Reuters added that the companies said the practices enabled restaurants to use this data for marketing purposes and could “poach customers away.”

Speaking to Reuters, DoorDash said the decision “rightly recognized how this law would have violated bedrock First Amendment rights of how we protect New Yorkers’ data.”

Nicholas Paolucci, a spokesman for New York city’s law department, told Reuters that it is currently reviewing the court’s ruling.

National Technology News has reached out to DoorDash, Grubhub and Uber Eats for comment.