Uber, one of the world’s leading ride-hailing startup, has today revealed that the company received over 3,000 reports of sexual assault related to its 1.3 billion rides in the United States last year.
Compared to the data revealed for previous year, this figure represents about 16 percent fall in the rate of incidents in the five most serious categories of sexual assault reported.
The firm also said reports of assaults on passengers overlooked risks for drivers as riders accounted for roughly half of the accused. The 84-page report comes almost two weeks after Uber said it would appeal the loss of its license to carry passengers in London over a “pattern of failures” on safety and security.
Uber has faced a lot of criticism over safety on its platform and has been repeatedly hit with lawsuits over driver misconduct. Last year, the company committed to releasing a safety report in a sign of a cultural turnaround under its new CEO.
The company said that the report shows its commitment to transparency to improve accountability and safety industry-wide. Further, the company stated that it would use what it learned producing the report for its “next steps” in other places.
In a tweet, Uber’s Chief Executive Officer Dara Khosrowshahi said: “I suspect many people will be surprised at how rare these incidents are; others will understandably think they’re still too common. Some people will appreciate how much we’ve done on safety; others will say we have more work to do. They will all be right.”
The company said it received 235 reports of “non-consensual sexual penetration” last year and 280 of “attempted non-consensual sexual penetration” – nearly all filed by women. The remaining assault reports included incidents of unwanted kissing or touching of body parts. In the report, the company said 99.9% of its 2.3 billion U.S. trips in 2017 and 2018 ended without safety incidents.
