[HN Gopher] Uber and Lyft to swap data on banned drivers
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Uber and Lyft to swap data on banned drivers
Author : recursion
Score : 88 points
Date : 2021-03-11 21:11 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.co.uk)
| bpodgursky wrote:
| Uber and Lyft aren't big fans of having drivers accused of sexual
| assault or theft. I'm sure you could come up with a nefarious
| take, but it's really just a way of filtering out bad actors
| before they hurt riders.
| z3c0 wrote:
| A noble effort, but I'm certainly concerned about the use of a
| background check company. This is anecdotal, but I've missed out
| on a job before due to misreporting from a background check
| company. The amount of hoops I had to go through to prevent the
| mistake from happening again took years - and of course, the
| opportunity for that job was long gone by then.
|
| Really, the only proper way to do a background check is via your
| local law enforcement. These companies should not be relied on.
| Ever. Even if they're right a majority of time, the cases where
| they're wrong are too damaging to be considered trivial.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > Really, the only proper way to do a background check is via
| your local law enforcement.
|
| What in the history of policing makes you think they're immune
| to similar mistakes?
| z3c0 wrote:
| There's more legal recourse for a mistake from law
| enforcement, and furthermore, they aren't going to show cases
| where you were acquitted. In my case, the background check
| company reported a crime that I HAD been arrested for but
| found not guilty of. Background check companies don't do
| their due diligence in making sure that the records they
| gather are still valid. I wanted very much to sue the company
| that cost me that job opportunity, but they've covered their
| bases enough to shift accountability to the customer.
|
| Basically, they put an asterisk next to their reports saying
| to take them with a grain of salt. But that doesn't change
| the damage done by a potential employer getting a peak into
| your past that they never should have gotten.
|
| Edit: fixed some typos
| badRNG wrote:
| Let's say you are mistaken for a wanted robber and arrested
| and later acquitted or have the charges dropped, when that
| record is expunged, there is a legal duty for the government
| to destroy all records related to that arrest.
|
| If they don't, you have political and legal recourse. A
| third-party company doesn't have the same legal obligation,
| nor does the public have any democratic control over that
| organization. Data companies have institutional pressures to
| preserve data at all costs, not to be proactive in destroying
| records of innocent folks.
| justapassenger wrote:
| Sad truth is that law enforcement also cannot be blindly relied
| on for background checks. Clerical errors happen everywhere,
| and law enforcement is even less accountable than some random
| company.
| yxwvut wrote:
| I'll take FOIA and a bureaucracy with official avenues of
| redress over a company that likely views my ability to see
| and rectify their data on me as anything from undesirable to
| an existential threat.
| ape4 wrote:
| I hope there is some way for drivers to appeal.
| redditmigrant wrote:
| This is obviously a good thing from a safety standpoint, but I
| worry we are increasingly becoming a one strike society. Where
| one instance of bad behavior locks you out of significant parts
| of the infrastructure. Moreoever this happens in a "court" with
| no documented laws/appeals process.
| simplecto wrote:
| Do they have a similar list for customers?
|
| There is some atrocious behavior out there in both the passenger
| and driver seats.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| I don't think there's a formal sharing program for shitty
| riders, but it definitely happens in some cases.
|
| https://twitter.com/lyft/status/1369390197503361030
| worker767424 wrote:
| If you read "drivers" as "employees," this is much more mixed and
| can get scary fast.
| stevebmark wrote:
| Despite the unethical and immoral behavior of Uber executive
| leadership, from the outside, Uber seems to have a better safety
| profile than Lyft. They added safety features to the app, such as
| emergency service requests, long before Lyft did. Both companies
| probably did it in response to sexual assaults that both
| companies enabled, but Uber took quicker action.
|
| I've seen some truly horrifying behavior from Lyft in terms of
| safety that makes me cautious of wanting to use the app, despite
| liking Lyft's public presence better. I suspect it's in the
| interest of growth and gaining market share to have things like
| lax-er driver background checks so they get more drivers. In the
| end it ends up hurting them a lot more, and can lead to terrible
| things for riders.
| bhupy wrote:
| > Despite the unethical and immoral behavior of Uber executive
| leadership, from the outside
|
| Interestingly, literally every C-level exec at Uber from the
| Travis Kalanick era has been replaced. Uber is the "Ship of
| Theseus" of companies.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| And yet-- still the same ship, right? It would be fascinating
| to have some insider stories about whether overhauling the
| upper management has actually changed the culture of the
| company, or if it's largely the same attitudes and behaviours
| at play.
| bhupy wrote:
| > And yet-- still the same ship, right?
|
| Not necessarily. That's the whole debate!
| lhorie wrote:
| I joined Uber a few months before Travis left. I can share
| a few things that come to mind:
|
| - shortly after Dara joined, he sent a company-wide email
| to the effect of "all corporate espionage projects must be
| halted effectively now"
|
| - he introduced a new guiding motto: "We do the right
| thing. Period." and repeatedly refers back to it
|
| - he found out about a previously undisclosed data leak and
| went ahead and made a proper public disclosure. The CSO had
| to leave the company and eventually got charged as a
| result[0]
|
| - on an all-hands meeting centrally themed on making things
| better after the Fowler scandal fallout, a board member
| made a cringey sexist joke. He had to resign from the board
| that afternoon. This incident spoke volumes about how
| discrimination culture was no longer going to be tolerated.
|
| - around the same time, as part of the HR revamp, a number
| of policies were introduced (training courses, anon
| hotline)
|
| - there was a huge internal project called 180 days of
| change in response to the wave of scandals. This
| encompasses the safety features, along with improvements to
| the driver UX to make it easier to understand their income,
| among other things (which I hear were very well received by
| users).
|
| [0] https://slate.com/technology/2020/08/uber-joseph-
| sullivan-ch...
| joering2 wrote:
| Apparently he is CSO at Cloudflare now [0]
|
| Speaking that crime doesn't pay...
|
| https://twitter.com/joesu11ivan
| mvzvm wrote:
| This is actually a good thing. Companies that can execute
| while rotating leadership are companies of rules, principles,
| etc, not companies of people. This is a very good thing.
| elliekelly wrote:
| What if the company's rules, principles, etc. are immoral,
| unethical, or otherwise bad for the company's long-term
| viability?
| imgabe wrote:
| Then it stops existing at some point in the short to
| medium term.
| bluntfang wrote:
| what else are they sharing? who wants to bet their next paycheck
| that they're colluding on fixing wages?
| frakt0x90 wrote:
| Airlines do similar things for anything safety related. Having
| safer airlines is good for business and there's no sense in
| hoarding that information.
| _jal wrote:
| Except... it ends up being a non-reviewable blacklist that most
| people don't even know exists.
|
| What safeguards are there so that a grouchy driver or engineer
| can't use it to mess with their ex? For instance.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| I would imagine there's a review process for allegations
| already.
| zeronine wrote:
| I assume there is safeguards. But for the same reason these
| lists aren't public, their policies aren't either.
| _jal wrote:
| Well, I think people tend to assume there were safeguards
| in place for things like this, too.
|
| https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20041207/1958200.shtml
|
| Doing these things in the dark almost always leads to
| abuse.
| drstewart wrote:
| >What safeguards are there so that a grouchy driver or
| engineer can't use it to mess with their ex? For instance.
|
| Not gonna say it's perfect, but as an engineer at one of
| these companies I'll say production access is generally very
| locked down and audited to the point of often being quite an
| encumbrance to even be able to debug production issues. Very
| unlikely anyone will be willy-nilly blacklisting drivers over
| personal vendettas.
| nullc wrote:
| The conspiracy theories never end. Next they're going to
| say there is some 'god view' built into the uber code
| allowing executives to track and retaliate against
| journalists that annoy them!
| rootsudo wrote:
| Which...was..proven true:
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/10/03/god-
| view...
| simple_phrases wrote:
| The No-Fly List[1] has been a two decades long quagmire that
| has put thousands of people into a situation where they're
| banned from travelling despite doing nothing wrong.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Fly_List#Vulnerabilities
| pochamago wrote:
| I wonder if other taxi services do anything similar regarding
| drivers they fired for safety reasons
| MattGaiser wrote:
| They are still learning how to get up websites.
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| I'm sure the process exists, it's just much more localized.
|
| If bob from City A's best taxi fires you and you try to get
| a job at City A's fastest taxi, fastest guy is probably
| gonna call best guy.
|
| If you move cross-country, probably not.
| jasode wrote:
| Examples of competitors sharing data about bad customers across
| several industries:
|
| - competitor banks share information about people who bounce
| checks
|
| - competitor insurance companies share data about customers with
| fraudulent claims
|
| - competitor casinos share photos of card counters
|
| Probably many others I can't think of.
|
| EDIT to reply: thanks for the customers' returns example. I found
| a story explaining the shared database:
| https://www.elliott.org/case-dismissed-2/the-retail-equation...
| us0r wrote:
| > competitor insurance companies share data about customers
| with fraudulent claims
|
| I'm pretty sure it's any claim. If you want to see something
| scary request your lexis nexus consumer report.
| seany wrote:
| Why are any of these things good for the consumer? All of these
| sound like DBs that should be limited if possible.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Successful insurance fraud presumably increases costs to
| consumers via higher premiums, right?
| tehwebguy wrote:
| If you are banned from returning merchandise to Amazon, Home
| Depot, CVS, Sephora, Dick's, JCPenney, Victoria's Secret or
| Best Buy you are likely banned from doing returns by all of
| them.
|
| They are all using a third party called The Retail Equation.
| onelovetwo wrote:
| How would they know who you are, if you're paying cash or not
| using the same card?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| If you're doing a return on a cash transaction, a lot of
| stores will ask for ID.
|
| https://www.theretailequation.com/frequently-asked-
| questions...
|
| > How does the system work?
|
| > When a consumer wants to make a return, a retailer will
| scan the original sales transaction receipt and/or collect
| consumer identification (in certain regions that may be the
| individual's driver's license or government-issued ID card)
| to make an identification of the person and his/her unique
| return behavior.
| jackson1442 wrote:
| Most ask for photo ID when you do a return.
| EGreg wrote:
| This is why it's good for hackers to bootstrap other
| identities over the years. You never know when they come
| in handy.
|
| (Note: I have not done this. Or have I? Well, no I
| haven't, but if I had you wouldn't know about it.)
|
| It's one of the most interesting "careful" projects you
| can do. Something like "Satoshi Nakamoto" can release
| software to change the world, but you can compare their
| style of writing to the short list of crypto researchers
| whose identities are known. Similarly with JK Rowling's
| book released under a pseudonym. It's very hard not to
| slip up and have your identities connected. However, in a
| world where everyone is supposed to have just one
| identity, and present this ID to communicate or transact
| on a given network, and where all databases are
| interconnected, the only way to preserve anonymity would
| be to hijack someone else's identity temporarily (such as
| making a call from a person's phone, or having a homeless
| person go buy a prepaid phone for you). Sometimes people
| swap identities voluntarily ... such as with bitcoin
| mixers or when you swap DNA samples before sending them
| back to 23andme and other test centers (who btw keep your
| DNA for the government and all kinds of things). But the
| risk is that you can be held responsible for something
| someone else did, with laundered bitcoins (civil
| forfeiture) or some physical crime (DNA analysis might
| indicate it's you).
|
| I wrote this 8 years ago: https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=1
| 14&cpage=553?p=114&cpage=553
| [deleted]
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