[HN Gopher] Uber and Lyft to swap data on banned drivers ___________________________________________________________________ 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] ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-03-11 23:01 UTC)