Uber's festering sexual assault problem: Safety gaps persist despite efforts

Uber received a report of sexual assault or sexual misconduct in the United States almost every eight minutes on average between 2017 and 2022, sealed court records show, a level far more pervasive than what the company has disclosed.

- EMILY STEEL

Publicly, the ride-sharing service proclaimed it was one of the safest options for travel, with aggressive media campaigns and polished reports on its website about the rarity of serious attacks. Inside Uber, teams of data scientists and safety experts spent years studying the problem. The company tested tools that proved effective at making trips safer, including sophisticated matching algorithms, mandatory video recording, and pairing female passengers with female drivers.

Still, Uber delayed or did not require its drivers to adopt some of the most promising programmes, nor did it warn passengers about factors it linked to attacks, according to interviews with more than a dozen current and former employees, internal documents and court records. Hundreds of the records have been under seal as part of large-scale sexual assault litigation against Uber. Uber's decisions about safety came as it prioritised growing its user base, avoiding costly lawsuits and protecting its business model, which classifies drivers as independent contractors rather than employees, the records show.

The distinction is important to Uber. Contractors are much cheaper than employees because the company does not need to pay benefits or overtime, and it also means drivers are minimally supervised and not subject to the same labour rules as traditional employees.

"Our purpose/goal is not to be the police," stated a 2021 brainstorming document about Uber's global safety standards. "Our bar is much lower and our goal is to protect the company and set the tolerable risk level for our operations."