CNN Enterprise
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At the same time as its ridership was decimated by the pandemic in 2020, Uber recorded 141 experiences of rape on its platform in america, the corporate disclosed in its security report launched Thursday.
The 78-page report, which covers 2019 and 2020, is the second-ever Uber has launched concerning security incidents following a CNN investigation into sexual assault and abuse on the ride-hailing platform 4 years in the past.
In its newest report, Uber mentioned it acquired 3,824 experiences of the 5 most extreme classes of sexual assault, which vary from “non-consensual kissing of a non-sexual physique half” to “non-consensual sexual penetration,” or rape. That’s down from the 5,981 experiences it recorded in 2017 and 2018, per its first report launched in December 2019. Uber mentioned that riders had been the accused get together 43% of the time in sexual assault incident experiences, much like its earlier report (45%).
Notably, Uber’s whole variety of US journeys over the 2 yr interval fell to 2.1 billion down from 2.3 billion within the first report, and common journeys fell from 3.1 million to 2.8 million per day. The corporate notes that the speed of sexual assault experiences decreased by 38% from the primary report back to the second.
The 141 rape experiences in 2020 mark a decline from 2019, wherein it recorded 247 experiences. Throughout the identical interval, whole journeys in america fell to 650 million in 2020, from 1.4 billion journeys in 2019, in line with the report. In the case of rape experiences, such incidents made up 0.00002% of whole journeys.
“The change in price of sexual assault experiences over time could have been impacted by quite a few elements, together with how the Covid-19 pandemic altered utilization of the platform in addition to Uber’s security and transparency efforts,” Uber mentioned within the report. “However every reported incident represents a harrowing lived expertise for the survivor. Even one report is one report too many.”
About 91% of the victims of rape had been riders and about 7% of the victims had been drivers. Girls made up 81% of the victims whereas males comprised about 15% (practically double that of the primary report).
The report touts the effectiveness of varied security measures the corporate has applied through the years. In 2018, it launched steady background checks on drivers utilizing know-how that displays for brand new legal offense experiences. It mentioned within the report that this function has resulted in additional than 80,000 drivers being faraway from its platform up to now.
Uber additionally reported 20 fatalities on account of bodily assaults over the two-year interval, 15 of which had been riders. Uber notes that the rise is “much like nationwide murder and aggravated assault statistics starting in 2020 through the pandemic.” It reported 101 motorcar fatalities occurred stemming from Uber-related crashes. The report claims that the motorcar fatality price linked to Uber’s platform in each 2019 and 2020 is roughly “half the nationwide common.”
Uber, adopted by Lyft, first pledged to place collectively a security transparency report in response to a 2018 CNN investigation into drivers on the platform accused of sexual assault or abuse by passengers since 2014, based mostly on publicly out there knowledge together with police experiences. After CNN started asking questions on sexual assaults, Uber introduced elevated security measures similar to a partnership with RapidSOS, an organization that sends a rider’s location and related data to a neighborhood police company when the rider makes use of the emergency button within the Uber app, and the corporate revamped its strategy to background checks.
Following Uber’s first report, the California Public Utilities Fee fined Uber $59 million for failing to show over further knowledge on sexual assaults and harassment incidents on its platform. The California regulator later drastically diminished the tremendous as a part of a settlement settlement permitted in December 2021, with Uber agreeing to pay $9 million towards safety-related initiatives.
Lyft, in the meantime, launched its first ever security report in October 2021, disclosing that it acquired 4,158 experiences of sexual assault on its platform from 2017 to 2019. Lyft, not like Uber, has not made public any dedication to launch future experiences on the subject.
Earlier this month, Lyft agreed to a $25 million settlement with shareholders pertaining to statements and disclosures about its enterprise, together with particularly round assault-related incidents, forward of going public in 2019.
In March 2021, Uber and Lyft introduced they’d share the names of drivers who had been deactivated over essentially the most extreme security incidents together with sexual assaults, which vary from non-consensual kissing of a non-sexual physique half to rape. The knowledge sharing is being managed by a third-party shopper reporting company, Rent Proper. Uber’s new report gives no updates on this partnership and outcomes since its launch.
