As today's News Scan notes, Uber has announced it will do annual background checks for its drivers. That is a step in the right direction, but not a big enough step.
CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has a post on Uber's website titled "Getting serious about safety."Since Uber got started nearly nine years ago, we have conducted criminal and driving record screenings on millions of people. While no background check is perfect, our process is thorough, fair, and relevant to the work at hand. However, we can do more to ensure drivers continue to meet our standards on an ongoing basis, long after they take their first trip. Moving forward we will increase due diligence to strengthen our screening process:
The two paragraphs that follow describe the annual checks and new offense notifications. Okay, they are getting more serious about new offenses. How about old ones? Follow the link in the above paragraph and what do we find?
Because the specifics can vary state-to-state based on legal requirements, we specifically describe Uber's approach to driver pre-screening in California.
Every person who wants to drive with Uber in California is required to undergo a pre-screening process. The screening, which looks back seven years, is performed on our behalf by Checkr, a third-party background check provider that is accredited by the National Association of Professional Background Screeners.
Seven years maximum look-back regardless of the seriousness of the offense? Yup.
An Uber applicant is disqualified if he has a conviction of murder, rape, robbery, speeding over 100 mph, street racing, driving drunk, or a number of other offenses within the last seven years. How about seven years and one day ago? Uber willfully blinds itself to all convictions over seven years old, according to their own statement.
People who have criminal records, even serious ones, should not be arbitrarily barred from all employment. They should, however, be barred for relevant offenses from positions where they are responsible for people in vulnerable positions. If a person has a conviction for embezzlement, no matter how long ago, you don't appoint him as trustee for an orphan's trust. Ever.
Similarly, a rapist should never be an Uber driver, regardless of how long ago. The risk is just too great.
Why does Uber blind itself to major offense convictions that are not all that old? Probably because barring felons from employment is considered uncool in the social environment in which Uber's executives live. Keeping their cool, trendy image is evidently more important to them than the lives and safety of their customers.
Why are we limiting this to Uber? Are taxi companies any less likely to put you in a car with a felon? I am sure it is a mixed bag by state and city, so, again, I would ask why this discussion is being limited to Uber.
"Fifteen of 131 people licensed to drive taxis in Wichita have been convicted of felonies, according to a check by The Eagle. That’s 11.4 percent of the taxi drivers.
Their crimes include first-degree murder, a fourth DUI, voluntary manslaughter and aggravated sodomy. The man with the murder conviction isn’t driving a taxi anymore; he died in July.
Under the Wichita ordinance regulating taxi drivers, people can get taxi licenses if their felony convictions occurred more than five years before their license application or if their sex crimes occurred before the sex offender registry went into effect."
http://www.kansas.com/news/local/crime/article1136560.html
Because I am responding to an announcement by Uber and their claim that they are taking this seriously and increasing their diligence.
Fair enough, but I am not sure a full analysis of Uber's policies can be had without a discussion of the norm in the same industry. Uber riders know a ton more information about their driver before getting in the car than your average taxi fare does.