Uber and Lyft passenger care services team up to make sure rivers that have been kicked off their platforms stay off their platforms.
The two announced a partnership Thursday together with fund control firm HireRight to create a database on drivers who were disabled for committing serious crimes, including physical and sexual assault, as part of its new industry-sharing security program. Passenger safety concerns have haunted Uber and Lyft for years along with dozens of complaints and lawsuits claiming that companies do not suitable screen drivers i ban those with multiple strikes to break rules.
The program is initially being developed in the United States and other delivery and delivery services may join the advancing data exchange system as long as they accept and comply with the same privacy guarantees as Uber and Lyft.
“You should be safe, regardless of the stakeholder platform you choose,” said Tony West, senior vice president and legal chief. a press release. “Addressing these difficult security issues is greater than any of us and this new industry-shared security program demonstrates the value of working collaboratively with experts, advocates and others to make a significant difference. We encourage more companies to join us “.
To a large extent, there are drivers for services like Uber and Lyft considered independent contractors, not employees, i.e. they can drive frequently for both companies.
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A third party, HireRight, will collect and manage all data shared between these companies and ensure that all parties meet the industry standards described by the National Resource Center on Sexual Violence. Per Associated Press, information about victims will not be shared in the database and incidents that led to the dismissal of the driver fall into six broad categories: attempted non-consensual sexual penetration; unauthorized touch of a part of the sexual body; kisses not consenting to a part of the sexual body; kisses not consenting to a non-sexual body part; non-consensual sexual penetration; and deadly physical assaults.
“We would share the basics of deactivation, in addition to identifying information about the driver enough for other companies to find that person on their platform, nothing more,” West said in an interview with NBC.
There are incidents of sexual assault and harassment notoriously infrequent for the police, which makes the control of dangerous drivers especially important, as they can slip under the radar with traditional backgrounds that are often based on legal records. The nonprofit victims’ rights group, the National Rape, Abuse and Incest Network, which previously criticized Uber and Lyft for the lack of rigorous driver detection processes, congratulated companies for joining on behalf of passenger safety.
“Sexual violence thrives on secrecy,” Scott Berkowitz, president and founder of the group, said in the press release. “Thanks to this initiative, authors will no longer be able to hide or escape accountability simply by changing vehicle sharing platform.”
Both Uber and Lyft have implemented a number of safety features in recent years, including in-app panic buttons and additional ways for passengers to verify their drivers. But critics argue that these precautions have been too late. In 2018, CNN found that 103 Uber drivers and 18 Lyft drivers had been charged with sexual assault or abuse in the past four years. In the company first safety report, Uber revealed that it received 3,045 reports of sexual assault during the trips in 2018. In the same year, nine people were killed and 58 killed in car-related crashes. Lyft has also amassed multiple lawsuits from women for its cause treatment of allegations of sexual assault and allegations that he did not do enough protect passengers from dangerous drivers.