Congresswoman Demands Answers from Uber on Failure to Prevent and Respond to Sexual Assaults by Drivers

A New York Times investigation showed that Uber received a report of sexual assault or misconduct on average every 8 minutes between 2017 and 2022, a total of 400,181 reports. Additional reporting by the Times revealed further details about how the company’s background checks often fail to remove potentially dangerous drivers and how their reporting systems fail to accurately detect dangerous patterns of behavior.  “The Times’ December reports shine a light on Uber’s background check policies and emphasize that despite Uber’s claim that all drivers have passed a background check, their “system approves people with many types of criminal convictions, including violent felonies”,” Dingell writes. 

“While crimes like murder, sexual assault, kidnapping, and terrorism result in immediate rejection, in many states Uber approves people with other convictions including child abuse, assault, and stalking, provided the convictions are at least seven years old. Most of the checks in these states only include reports based on where the person has lived in the past seven years, meaning they could miss a serious crime committed elsewhere or even in a different country could go unaccounted for. Notably, Uber has chosen to limit criteria that could disqualify potential drivers in the interest of recruiting more drivers and keeping their costs down.” “These reports cite multiple serious incidents of sexual assault where a driver had either been reported multiple times, had previous convictions that fell outside of the seven-year window, or recently faced an arrest, which is not cause for disqualification, for sexual misconduct” Dingell continues. 

“It is worth noting that the issue of downplaying certain “non-physical behaviors” was raised in a previous meeting with myself and with and representatives from Uber, who agreed that their process to track these behaviors could be strengthened. Despite both public and private claims about their commitment to safety, Uber has lobbied against proposed state laws that would require enhanced safety measures. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, more than a third of people arrested on rape charges had at least one prior felony conviction. This seven-year window is not appropriately serving Uber’s passengers, as evidenced by the devastating incidents laid out in these reports.” “It is extremely disturbing that Uber’s failure to make appropriate updates to policy and take meaningful action at several critical points to protect the company’s image and bottom line has led to assaults that could have been prevented” Dingell concludes. 

“There is no tradeoff that should be acceptable to Uber, considering the devastating impact of sexual assault. Beyond immediate physical impacts like injuries, sexually transmitted infections, and pregnancy, there are often long-term psychological impacts, such as depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts. These long-term impacts can affect every aspect of a survivor’s life, including employment, education, personal relationships, and even the ability to complete everyday tasks.” Dingell requested a follow-up meeting with Uber, and answers to the following questions:As mentioned in this letter, Uber answered questions from Representative Dingell on how “patterns of behavior” could lead to a driver’s deactivation, and that Uber encourages users to report troubling incidents. Yet many of the stories reported by The Times contradict the idea that patterns of alarming behavior led to deactivation.

How can Uber claim that reporting is a valuable safety tool that users should utilize if reports are not taken seriously until it is too late?How is Uber working to improve their standards for what constitutes a “pattern of behavior” to enhance their oversight over potentially dangerous drivers?

Uber claims to receive many “one-word or extremely vague reports” that make it difficult to understand what happened. Does the company follow up with reports that may be vague but include key words that identify a troubling pattern of behavior?Complaints that Uber deems “less serious” are typically not investigated by an Uber employee, and the reported drivers receive warnings and trainings they are not required to acknowledge or complete. How do you plan to strengthen this policy to ensure that drivers acknowledge that their conduct was reporting, and that appropriate training has been completed?The Times reporting states that Uber’s “system is also complicated by fraudulent complaints that Uber receives from passengers seeking a free ride, making it hard for the company to filter for legitimate warning signs, current and former employees said in interviews.” Similar to how Uber tracks driver’s patterns of behavior, is there not a method to track this pattern of behavior in passengers to ensure the legitimacy of their reports?Uber has a separate service for teens to use, which has different safety standards from the regular version of Uber.How do standards for the teen service differ from the service intended for those over the age of 18?What training does a driver receive to respond to an incident where a minor is able to bypass safeguards and utilize the version of Uber intended for adults without appropriate supervision?Why are the standards for Uber’s teen service, including the requirement for drivers to have no reports of sexual misconduct whatsoever, not applied for all Uber users?According to Uber, passengers only rate about 46 percent of trips, leaving an incomplete picture of the quality of rides nationwide. Do you have strategies in place to increase the number of ratings to ensure that Uber has a full picture of the quality of rides on the platform?