Uber's stance is that we are not a taxi company, we are an app company; so we do not need to follow transportation laws.
Uber is so secretive in India that the only way users can contact Uber is through Twitter. They don't provide any phone number, email or address. Moreover, Delhi police had to struggle to get in touch with Uber. They called an Uber cab using the App, and asked the driver to take them to Uber's office. When they reached office, it was almost empty. There was nobody who had any information about what is going on.
Uber claims they have a driver screening process, but it seems they skip through the due diligence process in India to save few bucks.
"Uber is committed to connecting you to the safest ride on the road"
Driver Screening:
http://blog.uber.com/driverscreening
which includes:
Criteria for drivers to pass through Uber’s screening, going back seven years:
- No DUI or other drug related driving violations or severe infractions*
- No Hit and Runs
- No fatal accidents
- No history of reckless driving
- No violent crimes
- No sexual offenses
- No gun related violations
- No resisting/evading arrest
- No driving without insurance or suspended license charge in the past 3 years
Unfortunately, Uber does not perform this due diligence while recruiting drivers in India. The alleged driver had previously served 7 months in prison for rape charges, that didn't stop Uber from recruiting him.
From the article: "Uber, which had employed the driver even though he had been arrested on allegations of sexual assault three years ago"
THe implication there is that he had not been convicted of any offense - which means no sexual offense was [in the eyes of the law...] committed.
I'm of two minds on this. On the one hand yeah, he was arrested for it and convicted or not, that's probably a risk Uber shouldn't be taking.
The other side of that an accusation or suspicion isn't a reasonable basis on which to ruin someone's employability.
Of 706 reported rape cases, 1 lead to an actual conviction. So you have an under-reported category of crime which is irregularly prosecuted. There's obvious ethical issues with denying jobs to people based on accusation rather than conviction, but in a society with a broken justice system surrounding that, there's ethical dilemmas no matter how you slice it. There's also a serious question about how you rate the ethical utility of someone not being able to get a job in a specific area, versus possible endangerment of someone's life.
I don't think it would have hurt them to err on the side of caution on this one. It's certainly possible that their background check simply was unable to see this information, but given the pattern Uber seems to be building for themselves here, it would be really hard for me to believe their explanation of what happened anyways.
Throw the other problems away: this is the actual problem at Uber. The fatal flaw Uber continues to make is that they fail to build trust, which brings their activities into question every time something like this happens. At this rate, it's just going to keep getting worse.
I actually can't believe the board hasn't taken any action here. I've never in my life seen a startup more in need of a board intervention.
It should be specific to the job. If it's a sexual offense, maybe they shouldn't hire you as a taxi driver / school counselor / other jobs that give you easy access to victims. Just like they shouldn't hire you as a cashier if you're suspected of check fraud.
The other one though, is the context of what job you're hiring someone for; in this case, to be a sort-of taxi driver. That means the person you hire is inevitably going to come in contact with some potentially vulnerable individuals as passengers (and I bet it wouldn't be too hard to make estimates on the probability of any given journey having a single female passenger). If there's a suspicion that the person might exploit that fact, then you shouldn't hire that person as a driver. That's a bit unfair to some potential drivers, but the flipside is that you have ethical obligations to both employees and customers.
For other contexts, the calculus is different. For example, if I was Uber I would not be too worried about a previous conviction for auto theft, since drivers supply their own cars, and if the applicant has not been in trouble for a reasonable length of time then Uber doesn't really have any assets at risk. Likewise, I could perhaps be more open-minded about an arrest without a conviction for assault if I were hiring someone to do server maintenance vs. hiring them as a driver, as the probability of an offense x the number of personal encounters an employee would have in the course of normal duties would be much lower.
Would you marry or co-found a company with someone who was charged with a crime like murder, rape, robbery or fraud; but was let go after serving 7 months in prison because of insufficient evidence which could not meet the standard of "beyond reasonable doubt".
Unfortunately, rape cases are very hard to convict (even in US) because police & prosecutors does not take rape investigations seriously.
mostly because he had No Objection Certificate from Delhi Police itself [0] that his history is clean?
EDIT: This image could be fake too, I can't trust our Indian media houses either :|
[0] - http://i.imgur.com/rwjhHBq.jpg
source of [0] - https://twitter.com/timesnow/status/541885210573275136
[0]: https://twitter.com/invincibleidea/status/541951277245005824
Uber on its own, had to follow its marketing pitch at least(that it checks bla bla bla). But then again, that didn't happen, and that is the basis of the outburst here.
Quick disclaimer: clearly, given what you said, Uber needs to dramatically change how it operates in India, and thorough background checks are hugely important for a commercial transport service. I'm just wondering if it would have been enough to prevent this particular crime from happening.
Delhi laws require all cabs to have an onboard GPS: "The vehicle must be fitted with GPS/GPRS based tracking devises which must be in constant communication with the Central Control unit while the vehicles is on duty."
Uber didn't even have an on-board always on GPS, their only way to track is through mobile app; which the driver conveniently turned off.
[1] http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/Banning-Uber-d... [2] http://fortune.com/2014/12/08/in-defense-of-uber-in-india/
Only 7 months for rape?
http://indianexpress.com/article/cities/kolkata/woman-gangra...
http://www.ndtv.com/article/cities/delhi-13-year-old-girl-al...
I've spoken with one woman since this incident. She stills considers radio cabs (taxi4sure, specifically) safer than rickshaws or flagged cabs (i.e., flagging a taxi rather than using an app).
It's rather unlikely that banning Uber will do much. I suspect that a Beretta in every purse is the only real solution, but it's also a solution that the government will never support. Only rich people and jewelry stores deserve to be protected by guns.
Not that i'm saying it's ok, it's not. but uber seems to be catching a lot of flak for things they haven't done. sure they probably could have done more to prevent it, but so could the government.
companies always tend to the minimum required by law, it's cheaper that way
and the amount of rape happening in india is crazy, the government needs to do something about that, something more than blaming uber. what's the point in the state if it can't even protect it's people?
Pretty reasonable to expect Uber to detect and prevent people like that from driving cars for them, I think.
> it's not Uber's fault that the indian market is not as strictly regulated, and that one of their drivers did this.
According to the article this driver would be banned from getting a taxi permit under Indian law. Uber didn't follow Indian law.
Edit:
> and the amount of rape happening in india is crazy, the government needs to do something about that, something more than blaming uber.
Do you know that more women are raped every year in UK & US than in India? You hear a lot more about rapes in India because Indians are more outraged towards rape than Americans & British.
Rate per 100,000 population: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_statistics#UN_Rape_statist...
United Kingdom (England and Wales): 28.8
United States of America : 27.3
According to some surveys, 20% to 25% girls on American colleges campuses suffer sexual assault.
No, but I do know you don't understand reporting and statistics.
The UK has had massive reforms between the 1980s and now. Police are required, by law, to record every single accusation of rape irrespective of if it results in a prosecution or even an attempted prosecution.
That has resulted in the UK's "rate of rape" going through the roof, because the statistics now record every accusation regardless of if the police feel it is "credible" or not. There is also more willingness for the crown to try and prosecute even if they don't have a strong case (as failure to prosecute was a big political football in the UK, and many victims at least wanted to see accused in the dock).
I don't know know how "repey" the UK, US, and India are relatively to one another. I do know that the way you're using statistics is highly flawed. You assume that less police reporting means less crime, but it might be due to either less reports TO police or less willingness BY police to take the accusation seriously.
Honestly the only thing even close to comparable statistics is a blind victim survey (e.g. grab 10,000+ completely random people spread across all socioeconomic groups, and ask them what crimes they have been victims of in the last 5 years, then extrapolate). However even with victim surveys you have to be very consistent with definitions of crime across across countries (e.g. trying to compare the FBI's Crime Survey to the UK's version of the same, the definition of violent crime is different).
Bullshit. Your link states "does not include cases of rape which go unreported, which are not recorded, and does not account for differing definitions between countries".
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/01/07...
> Three-fourths of the perpetrators of India's 24,206 rapes in 2011 are still at large, and that's not even including the rapes that go unreported, which are thought to be the majority of cases. The women and girls who do report being raped can sometimes face antipathy or outright hostility from police.
'It does not include cases of rape which go unreported, which are not recorded, and does not account for differing definitions between countries.'
This is why you see such a huge difference.
> You hear a lot more about rapes in India because Indians are more outraged towards rape than Americans & British.
Wait, wat?
Also "Indians are more outraged towards rape than Americans & British" is a super bold claim I'd love to see proof of.
Given that you believe this, I take it you will do everything you can to prevent your daughters from attending college?
(For similar reasons I'll attempt to keep my sons out of jail.)
Sooner or later they have to face the issue head on, because scapegoating gets old.
The point is, Uber is claiming to be better than cabbies in that they screen drivers, etc. Clearly they aren't doing anything of the sort. So they are as unsafe as taking any other cab.
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/06/photos-bhopal...
If they can bully their way in the US, and not care about law and regulations there, then they have absolutely nothing to worry about in India. The law enforcement is weak, to say the least.
* Uber's customer service is a disgrace. I've tried contacting them 4 times for different issues ranging from bugs in their app to getting incorrectly charged for toll fees. Never got a response, despite countless followups.
* They do NOT really hire the drivers... they are in fact hiring "companies" that employs the drivers. Once I had someone else pick me up. The driver was using someone else's phone and cab that was registered to Uber. He told me the "Uber" driver was on a leave, and that he was deputizing on-behalf of him. And that he didn't really work for Uber, but for the "owner of the car" I could have cancelled the ride, but then Uber would have charged me 150 Rupees ($3) cancellation fee. And I didn't want to do anything with Uber's customer service, and I was kind of certain that I wouldn't get my money back.
* They're a faceless organization and that's unacceptable for something that involves physical contact with real strangers.
* They have their priorities mixed up. Instead of focusing on their "safety claims" (which they pitch as a distinguish-er) they are relentlessly focused on achieving the network affect that'd propel their business.
I'm firmly in the camp that believes that Uber used some of the funding $$$ in bribing the officials here to accelerate their growth (in terms of number of cities they operate in) in this country without any review.
The trajectory with Uber is very similar to how many a telecom providers made a killing during the telecom-boom in India. The government is set to have lost upto INR 300,000,000,000 [1] when a corrupt minister sold air-waves for cheaper prices.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8708545 [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2G_spectrum_scam
Reserve Bank of India has a rule about all CC transactions needing 2FA and Uber wasn't complying with it. They recently shifted to a prepaid wallet mechanism to do payments.
There's very little awareness around the fact that you can dispute credit-card transactions in India.
Uber's Akshay wrote a very condescending blog post about it calling 2FA an "antiquated" security measure: http://blog.uber.com/2FA
I don't like the tone of the blog post TBH.
tldr: Uber just can't do the same checks it does in the US in other parts of the world which don't have records. And even though it did actually get the right certificate from the cops in this case, they should have thought of doing more.
I am no fan of uber (although I drive for them, but mostly their competitor, which I prefer). But I think this comment is apt.
Precisely for the reasons you mentioned in your blog post about how things can be gamed in India through bribes, Uber should have been careful about expanding in India. Asking the drivers to provide a conduct certificate in a corrupt country like India is a "cover your ass" move to precisely brandish this certificate and say - "Hey, see, we did our homework. It is not our fault" in situations like this.
This was an opportunity for them to raise the bar. This is a leadership failure. They were too eager to just expand overseas. They could have used technology to mitigate such risks in the "rape capital" of India (world?). Some things I think they can do as a technology company in India
- Install custom GPS trackers which cannot be turned off manually on the cars.
- Install a special audio/video cam in the car, and automatic audio/video feed analysis for distress screams, struggle.
- Automatic algorithmic tracking of the car route/de-tours
Like I said, they had a golden opportunity to showcase how technology could be used to mitigate the risk of such incidents in Delhi, and used it in their marketing. They could have raised the bar. They could have shown how it is done. They could have made the world safer and better. This is what separates the great from the good. Larry Page calls them Moonshots. Uber had the resources to do it. They played the "CYA" game. They should take responsibility. They could have taken something and made it 10X better. That's what great companies do.
Fwiw http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/Delhi-police-h...
This is in someways the direct opposite of what the media was reporting so far. It will all shake out in the coming days/weeks.
Meanwhile Uber remains banned in Delhi (imo a good thing. The management is pretty scummy and they and Uber's operating procedures could use some sunlight). The government and the police will come under massive media scrutiny (imo, even better.)
It is now a full fledged media circus here, with politicians posturing,citizens screaming, parties of different ideologies protesting etc. Elections are due in Delhi in February, and safety (or lack of it) for women in Delhi is an issue that voters pay attention to, so the above is all par for the course. Again,just fwiw.
Can't come soon enough for a company that heavily advertised itself as being the Safer option in India and conveniently actually skipped the background verification part of the process. Then the asshat CEO put the entire blame on the "System" in a finger pointing blog post.
"Move fast and Break things" Indeed.
[1] http://indianexpress.com/article/india/crime/delhi-rape-govt...
As an Android developer, the root and vulnerability reporting behavior is pretty standard for bug tracking, and in Uber's case fraud prevention as well.
Therefore, it would be illegal for someone to refuse someone because of this.
Source: http://www.cdpdj.qc.ca/en/pages/lexique.aspx#personal-charac...
If I buy a gun and shoot you, the government will ban gun manufacturers?
If I buy a baseball bat and smash your skull, the govt will ban all sports?
If I buy a potato and stick it in your throat and you die, the govt will ban agriculture?
If I offer you a ride (free or for a fee) and then decide to rape you and bury you in a forest, the govt will ban auto makers?
How does that make sense?
If the law requires you to go through a background check and obtain a license to buy a gun; but you don't get a license, you buy a gun and then shoot someone. Clearly, you would be liable for the crime.
This morning's sympathy was inspired by local government shenanigans. They had some city-manager jackhole on the radio explaining that they had informed Uber back in July that they would be considering Uber's business, and furthermore they now plan to do that consideration at the February city council meeting. Shameless!
- Taxi business is heavily regulated in India and anything like Uber is likely to be illegal.
- India does not have any consolidated crime database. Background verification generally means asking the person to get a certificate from local police station. (Which anyone can get by paying a bribe).
I am surprised that Uber was actually operating in India. Clearly they were staying under the radar and as usual the government officials were too incompetent to understand what Uber is.
I think in this case Uber is clearly liable for a civil suite and must compensate the victim for lack of due diligence and fraud.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Rape-fear-keeps-US-...
