UBER UPDATE INTL
UBER RECEIVED OVER 3,000 SEXUAL ASSAULT REPORTS
More than 3,000 reports of sexual assault were made to Uber’s US headquarters in 2018, a safety report released by the company has confirmed. In a bid to show it was serious about tackling security concerns, Uber Technologies released data on the 1.3b rides it operated in the US last year. Over 2.3b trips in two years (2017/2018), the company received almost 6,000 reports of sexual assault in the US. The ride-hailing service is facing growing scrutiny worldwide over fears about its safety, and recently lost its licence in London after it was revealed that 14,000 trips were made by fraudulent drivers. Uber said 99.9 per cent of its US trips over the past two years had ended without incident, and the statistics represent a 16 per cent fall in the rate of incidents from the previous year in the five most serious categories of sexual assault reported. It said it received 235 reports of “non-consensual sexual penetra- tion” last year and 280 of “attempted non-consensual sexual penetration” - nearly all filed by women. The remaining assault reports included incidents of unwanted kissing or touching of body parts. Almost half (45 per cent) of sexual assaults were reported by the drivers themselves, against riders. “I suspect many people will be surprised at how rare these incidents are; others will understandably think they’re still too common. Some people will appreciate how much we’ve done on safety; others will say we have more work to do. They will all be right,” tweeted Chief Executive Officer Dara Khosrowshahi. The 84-page report is part of an apparent cultural turnaround under Khosrowshahi, who was appointed CEO in 2017 and has publicly committed to releasing statistics on the rate of incidents. It also detailed ten fatal physical assaults in 2017 and nine in 2018 - eight victims were riders, seven were drivers using Uber’s app, and four were third parties such as bystanders. The firm, which operates in 70 countries, said the report showed its commitment to transparency to improve accountability and safety industry-wide.
UBER WILL RECORD THE AUDIO OF PEOPLE’S JOURNEYS IN TAXIS
Uber is to start taking audio recordings of people’s journeys, storing the recordings in the app. According to the Independent, travellers will have to opt into the recordings, which can be taken either on all journeys or specific ones. The decision is another attempt by Uber to improve its image and safety record in the wake of various controversies. The feature will first commence in Brazil and Mexico, rolling out in cities in both countries from December. The company then expects to launch it in other markets. If people opt into the recordings, the audio will be stored on the passenger or driver’s phone and encrypted to protect privacy, and users will not be able to listen to them. They can later share a recording with Uber, which will have an encryption key, if they want to report a problem. Whether the recording feature will deter violent behaviour to help passengers and drivers is unknown. But Uber stands to benefit because the recordings could help the company mitigate losses and rein in liability for incidents that flare up between drivers and passengers.
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For example, if a shouting match erupts between a driver and passenger, and both accuse the other of being verbally abusive, the recording could help Uber determine where fault lies after the inci- dent, mitigating any kind of loss or claim that could be made against the driv- er, said Thom Rickert, vice president and emerging risk specialist at Trident Public Risk Solutions. “It probably is not going to prevent something from happening,” Rickert said. “It will probably just help you analyse what can we do to change outcomes the next time.” Uber says the new feature will promote accountability and help its safety team take decisive action when needed. The recording feature also raises privacy concerns that drivers or passengers could have their conversations recorded without their knowledge or consent. “It’s a digital recording. It’s going to exist on a server somewhere,” Rickert said. “Yes, it can be encrypted. Yes, it can be
hacked...so that is a privacy concern for the individual who has lost control over that recording.” In both Brazil and Mexico, Uber allows riders to pay with cash, which increases the risk of incidents. In Brazil, drivers have been robbed and have suffered violent, fatal attacks while using the Uber platform, the company said in a federal filing. Uber plans to release a safety report this year, which provides data on reports of sexual assaults and other safety incidents that occurred in the United States. The company has been adding safety features to its app over the past year, including one that helps riders ensure they’re getting into the right vehicle and another that enables users to call 911 from within the app and automatically share the vehicle’s location with first responders.
REVIEW OF FATAL ARIZONA CRASH, U.S. AGENCY SAYS UBER SOFTWARE FLAWED
An Uber self-driving test vehicle that struck and killed an Arizona woman in 2018 had software flaws, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said last month as it disclosed the company’s autonomous test vehicles were involved in 37 crashes over the prior 18 months. NTSB may use the findings from the first fatal self-driving car accident to make recommendations that could impact how the entire industry addresses self-driving soft- ware issues or to regulators about how to oversee the industry. According to Yahoo, the board was to meet on November 19 to determine the probable cause of the accident in Tempe, Arizona that killed 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg as she was walking a bicycle across a street at night. In a report released ahead of the meeting, the NTSB said the Uber vehicle had failed to properly identify her as a pedestrian crossing a street. That accident prompted significant safety concerns about the nascent self-driving car industry, which is working to get vehi- cles into commercial use. In the aftermath of the crash, Uber suspended all testing and did
JANUARY 2020
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