PROTEST PLIGHT
UBER FACES LEGAL ACTION OVER ‘RACIST’ FACIAL VERIFICATION SYSTEM
Unionised Uber drivers are taking legal action against the ride-hailing app over allegations of using “racially discrimi- natory” facial verification technology, which they claim has led to dozens of unfair dismissals. Computer Weekly reports that Uber’s Real-Time ID Check system uses Face API, a face-matching software devel- oped by Microsoft that can be used for either facial verification or recognition, and essentially acts as a comparison tool, checking selfies taken by couriers and drivers as they log in against pho- tographs in Uber’s database to confirm their identities. The legal action is being brought by two separate unions – the App Drivers and Couriers Union (ADCU) and the International Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB) – which claim that Uber’s use of the technology has led to the wrongful suspension of their mem- bers following misidentification by the system. “Workers are prompted to provide a real-time selfie and they face dismissal if the system fails to match the selfie with a stored reference photo,” said the ADCU. “In turn, private hire drivers who have been dismissed also faced auto- matic revocation of their private hire driver and vehicle licences by TfL.” In July 2021, Computer Weekly report- ed that the transport regulator was facing numerous legal appeals from Uber drivers as a result of its decisions to revoke their private licences on the basis of mistaken information from Uber’s systems. In the ADCU case, which is being sup- ported by its associated data trust Worker Info Exchange and the Equality & Human Rights Commission (EHRC), the union has filed a claim at the Cen- tral London Employment Tribunal on behalf of former UberEats courier Pa Edrissa Manjang and former Uber driv- er Imran Javaid Raja. “It is clear that artificial intelligence and
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automated decision-making can have a discriminatory impact. The conse- quences, in the context of deciding people’s access to work, can be devas- tating. These cases are enormously important,” said the pair’s lawyer, Paul Jennings, a partner at Bates Wells. “AI is rapidly becoming prevalent in all aspects of employment and important principles will be established by the courts when determining these disputes.” The IWGB has also filed a separate claim for indirect racial discrimination on behalf of an unnamed member, whose account it claims was terminated follow- ing a facial recognition error. It further claimed that it has represented more than 200 drivers and couriers who have been unfairly terminated by Uber in the past year on a range of grounds, includ- ing facial recognition failures. Both unions stressed that multiple studies have brought into question the accuracy of facial verification technolo- gy, particularly when used to identify people of colour. In 2018, for example, research from MIT indicated that Microsoft’s facial recogni- tion and detection systems – specifically the Face API being used by Uber – had gender and racial biases, finding it had much higher error rates when identify- ing people with darker skin. “Our Real-Time ID Check is designed to protect the safety of everyone who uses the Uber app by helping ensure the correct driver is behind the wheel,” claimed an Uber spokesperson in response to the separate legal actions being taken by the unions, as well as allegations that its facial verification system is racially discriminatory. “The system includes robust human review to make sure that this algorithm is not making decisions about some- one’s livelihood without oversight.” Alongside legal action, the IWGB organised a 24-hour boycott of Uber on 6 October and an accompanying protest outside the company’s London
HQ on the same day, which was supported by Black Lives Matter UK. Demands made by the IWGB included increased earnings for drivers after a recent increase in the commission taken by Uber, as well as a fair, transparent process for account terminations. Henry Chango Lopez, general secretary of the IWGB, added: “Hundreds of drivers and couriers who served through the pandemic have lost their jobs without any due process or evi- dence of wrongdoing, and this reflects the larger culture at Uber which treats its majority-BAME workers as dispos- able. Uber must urgently scrap this racist algorithm and reinstate all the drivers it has unfairly terminated.” A separate strike action organised by ADCU at the end of September 2021 made similar demands of Uber, includ- ing that it respect a Supreme Court decision which explicitly ruled that drivers should be paid from when they log in, not just when assigned to trips as Uber decided a month later. James Farrar, general secretary of the ADCU and director of Worker Info Exchange, said Uber only implemented the facial recognition system to secure the renewal of its licence, which it knew would generate unacceptable failure rates when used against a workforce mainly composed of people of colour. “Uber then doubled down on the prob- lem by not implementing appropriate safeguards to ensure appropriate human review of algorithmic decision- making,” he added. The ADCU and IWGB have not been officially recognised by Uber, which instead chose to sign a collective bar- gaining agreement with GMB in May. While this was the first time Uber had recognised a union of its drivers any- where in the world, the agreement does not allow for collective bargaining over drivers’ earnings, including the firm’s implementation of the minimum wage.
NOVEMBER 2021
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