Uber knows when the battery on your phone is running low – and that you are more likely to pay higher “surge” prices for a car as a result.

The taxi-hailing app captures a huge amount of data on all its users, and the company’s head of economic research Keith Chen has revealed how Uber uses that to inform its business strategy.

Speaking to NPR’s Hidden Brain programme, Mr Chen said the amount of battery users had left was “one of the strongest predictors of whether or not you are going to be sensitive to surge” – in other words, agree to pay 1.5 times, 2 times or more the normal cost of a journey.

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Uber knows whether a user is on low battery because the app needs to use that information to go into power saving mode.

“When your phone is down to 5 per cent battery and that little icon on the iphone turns red, people start saying I’d better get home or I don’t know how I’m going to get home otherwise,” he said.

“We absolutely don’t use that to push you a higher surge price,” Mr Chen added. “But it is an interesting psychological fact of human behaviour.”

Uber has also discovered a strong “round number effect” on whether people accept paying more, Mr Chen said, and explained why the company is much more likely to offer you a journey that costs “2.1X” normal than “2X”.

“When you tell someone your trip is going to be two times what it would normally be, people think that is capricious and unfair – somebody just made that up,” he said.

“Whereas if you say your trip is going to be 2.1 times what it normally is they think there is some smart algorithm at work, it doesn’t seem quite so unfair.”

Shape Created with Sketch. In pictures: European taxi drivers in protest against Uber app Show all 8 left Created with Sketch. right Created with Sketch. Shape Created with Sketch. In pictures: European taxi drivers in protest against Uber app 1/8 London Taxi drivers in protest at Victoria Street in London 2/8 London Black cab and licensed taxi drivers protest at Trafalgar Square in London. Unions and groups representing taxi drivers are warning that the move is leading to unlicensed drivers being contacted via the new technology, with no checks on whether they are legitimate 3/8 London Black cab and licensed taxi drivers protest at Trafalgar Square, London over the introduction of a phone app called Uber which allows customers to book and track vehicles 4/8 London Traffic gets worst as taxi drivers protest at Trafalgar Square in London 5/8 Barcelona A taxi proceeds demonstrators holding a banner during a strike action in protest of unliscensed taxi-type-services in Barcelona 6/8 Barcelona Taxi drivers hold a banner during a strike action in protest of unliscensed taxi-type-services in Barcelona. Banner reads, "Out with illegal apps" 7/8 Madrid Taxi drivers carry a banner during a strike action in protest of unliscensed taxi-type-services in central Madrid 8/8 Madrid Taxi drivers in London, Paris, Madrid and other European capitals plan to bring chaos to the streets in protest against unlicensed mobile car-hailing services such as Uber which have shaken up the industry 1/8 London Taxi drivers in protest at Victoria Street in London 2/8 London Black cab and licensed taxi drivers protest at Trafalgar Square in London. Unions and groups representing taxi drivers are warning that the move is leading to unlicensed drivers being contacted via the new technology, with no checks on whether they are legitimate 3/8 London Black cab and licensed taxi drivers protest at Trafalgar Square, London over the introduction of a phone app called Uber which allows customers to book and track vehicles 4/8 London Traffic gets worst as taxi drivers protest at Trafalgar Square in London 5/8 Barcelona A taxi proceeds demonstrators holding a banner during a strike action in protest of unliscensed taxi-type-services in Barcelona 6/8 Barcelona Taxi drivers hold a banner during a strike action in protest of unliscensed taxi-type-services in Barcelona. Banner reads, "Out with illegal apps" 7/8 Madrid Taxi drivers carry a banner during a strike action in protest of unliscensed taxi-type-services in central Madrid 8/8 Madrid Taxi drivers in London, Paris, Madrid and other European capitals plan to bring chaos to the streets in protest against unlicensed mobile car-hailing services such as Uber which have shaken up the industry

NPR’s host Shankar Vedantam asked Mr Chen if he, as a user, was concerned about just how much information companies like Uber appeared to hold about him.

Mr Chen said: “We do have access to a tremendous amount of data, and because of that we have privacy officer within the firm, even as an employee in the firm I have to be very careful about what I look at in terms of data. We take our responsibility very seriously.”