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Comment by RealGeek | Hacker News Reader

Uber is not being banned just because of this rape incident. Uber did not following Indian laws & Delhi transport regulations, and operated illegally under the radar. Before this incident, Delhi Government was not aware about how Uber operated. This incident prompted Indian authorities to investigate the operations of Uber.

Uber's stance is that we are not a taxi company, we are an app company; so we do not need to follow transportation laws.

Uber is so secretive in India that the only way users can contact Uber is through Twitter. They don't provide any phone number, email or address. Moreover, Delhi police had to struggle to get in touch with Uber. They called an Uber cab using the App, and asked the driver to take them to Uber's office. When they reached office, it was almost empty. There was nobody who had any information about what is going on.

Uber claims they have a driver screening process, but it seems they skip through the due diligence process in India to save few bucks.

https://www.uber.com/safety

"Uber is committed to connecting you to the safest ride on the road"

Driver Screening:

http://blog.uber.com/driverscreening

which includes:

Criteria for drivers to pass through Uber’s screening, going back seven years:

- No DUI or other drug related driving violations or severe infractions*

- No Hit and Runs

- No fatal accidents

- No history of reckless driving

- No violent crimes

- No sexual offenses

- No gun related violations

- No resisting/evading arrest

- No driving without insurance or suspended license charge in the past 3 years

Unfortunately, Uber does not perform this due diligence while recruiting drivers in India. The alleged driver had previously served 7 months in prison for rape charges, that didn't stop Uber from recruiting him.

View on HN

No sexual offenses

From the article: "Uber, which had employed the driver even though he had been arrested on allegations of sexual assault three years ago"

THe implication there is that he had not been convicted of any offense - which means no sexual offense was [in the eyes of the law...] committed.

I'm of two minds on this. On the one hand yeah, he was arrested for it and convicted or not, that's probably a risk Uber shouldn't be taking.

The other side of that an accusation or suspicion isn't a reasonable basis on which to ruin someone's employability.

There really ought be no two minds about this. If he was acquitted and you don't give him a job soley because of that fact it would be unfair discrimination.

I wouldn't hire George Zimmerman or Darren Wilson for any job.

If I were in a position to hire/not hire those characters, I would definitely stipulate that they may not bring a gun to work...

Would you hire them to look after black kids?

Frankly I don't envision them in any public-facing role, let alone dealing with kids. However, there are numerous jobs that don't require regular contact with the general public.

If I found out my black son & daughter were being looked after by one of those two....

Not necessarily acquitted though - could be the case hasn't come to trial yet, or some pressure was applied somewhere along the way that would never show up in a background check.

> The other side of that an accusation or suspicion isn't a reasonable basis on which to ruin someone's employability.

It should be specific to the job. If it's a sexual offense, maybe they shouldn't hire you as a taxi driver / school counselor / other jobs that give you easy access to victims. Just like they shouldn't hire you as a cashier if you're suspected of check fraud.

While I would often usually with you, the nature of sexual assault is that even in "developed" countries, it is very hard to convict people for committing these offenses, and very often the accused walk. I can only imagine how much worse this is in countries that are less than friendly to women (I am not saying that India is better or worse, I don't know).

I don't think it would have hurt them to err on the side of caution on this one. It's certainly possible that their background check simply was unable to see this information, but given the pattern Uber seems to be building for themselves here, it would be really hard for me to believe their explanation of what happened anyways.

Throw the other problems away: this is the actual problem at Uber. The fatal flaw Uber continues to make is that they fail to build trust, which brings their activities into question every time something like this happens. At this rate, it's just going to keep getting worse.

I actually can't believe the board hasn't taken any action here. I've never in my life seen a startup more in need of a board intervention.

> I don't think it would have hurt them to err on the side of caution on this one.

Erring "on the side of caution" in this case basically means denying someone a job, a livelihood, based on mere allegations that anyone can make. If you strictly enforce this (or even harsher variants, e.g. "no men sitting next to children on planes"), you make it very simple to ruin someone's life.

We're not talking about plane customers here, we're talking about the pilots. Finding trusted drivers in a situation where safety is important because people are in a unique position to trust that driver with their lives, with a startup that has to be extra-careful to prevent major controversies while they are under a heavy spotlight doing ambiguously legal things (or in the case of Portland a few days ago, just outright, unambiguously breaking the law and then trying to pass the legal buck to their drivers).

The notion that women are filing police reports and potentially going to court over something so serious is not really something I would describe as a simple way to ruin someone's life. Nor would Uber rejecting an application due to a sexual assault allegation really qualify to me as a life ruiner.

Law very often fails justice, particularly in sexual assault cases. When laws don't work, it's the job of a company to recognize when and how that failure occurs, and manage that risk. Uber failed to manage that risk, and most disturbingly, I can't even figure out if they care.

> When laws don't work, it's the job of a company to recognize when and how that failure occurs, and manage that risk.

OK, we can agree to disagree. Companies (and most other institutions) care much more about publicity and their reputation than about justice; the recent UVA "rape culture" scandal shows that pretty clearly that mob "justice" very often has nothing to do with actual justice.

Exactly. When a person is put in a trusted position over another, we often have these higher standards.. teachers for example.

A cab driver -- who's capable of locking the doors and taking their passenger to wherever they want -- is in such a trusted position, and there should be a higher standard for those positions.

This doesn't mean they are being prevented from working. They're being prevented from working in this position. They are free to go do something else where other people aren't trusting their lives to them.

What if somebody who already is in a position of power/authority/trust is accused of something like that? That's what I meant with "easy to ruin people's lives" (e.g. Strauss-Kahn).

Well, here in the US at least, that very often leads to them losing their job. And I'm not just referring to rape--even more minor offenses... for example, teachers have been fired for their offensive facebook comments.

That isn't ruining their lives. They are free to go work elsewhere where other people's lives aren't put in their hands.

I'll be more specific. This man was accused of rape and worked as a cab driver, where other people trust their lives to him. Instead, he could work as a truck driver transporting goods.

That isn't ruining his life. Truth is, it would barely change.

Truckers are always away from their families. It is a very different life.

You've completely missed the point. There are other jobs a driver can do. He can deliver food or packages; transport goods locally; or drive buses or other public transportation.

There is NO way that "cab driver" is the only type of position he is capable of doing. And there are plenty of people qualified to drive a cab that are capable of doing it without raping anyone.

How is ruining a teacher's teaching career the same as this? Most teachers spend a not insignificant portion of their time working towards the goal of becoming a teacher. That is now the case for someone learning to be a cab driver.

I completely agree with your point. Teachers do spend a significant amount of time, and yet we have these consequences for them. And yet here we have cab driver, who has spent virtually no time, and there are some who think he should have a right to this position.

Edit: I think the comparison of responsibility is appropriate here.. since a cab driver may have a minor, mentally disabled, or intoxicated individual in their care.

Getting a London black cab license is about as difficult.

I have no experience with the London cab system, but is getting a London black cab license really as difficult as going through a 4-year university degree program (+ whatever 'residency'-type work afterwards)?

[In any case, this is a side point. Most places don't have severe barriers to becoming a cab driver other than limit supply of licenses. And none of that even applies to Uber since they are ignoring that system.]

Getting The Knowledge is pretty hard. Half of the people who try still fail after spending years on it.

In order to qualify as a licensed London taxi driver, a trainee must learn the complex and irregular layout of London's ~25,000 streets (Figure 1) within a 6-mile radius of Charing Cross train station, along with the locations of thousands of places of interest. This spatial learning is known as acquiring “the Knowledge” and typically takes between 3 and 4 years, leading to a stringent set of examinations, called “appearances,” which must be passed in order to obtain an operating license from the Public Carriage Office (PCO, the official London taxi-licensing body).

from 'Acquiring “the Knowledge” of London's Layout Drives Structural Brain Changes' - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3268356/

> Erring "on the side of caution" in this case basically means denying someone a job, a livelihood, based on mere allegations that anyone can make

Congratulations! You've just repeated the argument that lead to the Catholic Church preotecting pedophiles and Jimmy Saville getting a free reign over children, mental health patients, and corpses!

I don't think a single accusation (not conviction) of rape should be enough to convict. As someone who was falsely accused when I was younger, it's pretty hard to get past the stigma of even an accusation in the moment.

I would say that multiple arrests (even without conviction) may be enough to bar certain types of employment, at an employers discretion, such as ride services where there is an increased risk.

> The other side of that an accusation or suspicion isn't a reasonable basis on which to ruin someone's employability.

Would you marry or co-found a company with someone who was charged with a crime like murder, rape, robbery or fraud; but was let go after serving 7 months in prison because of insufficient evidence which could not meet the standard of "beyond reasonable doubt".

Unfortunately, rape cases are very hard to convict (even in US) because police & prosecutors does not take rape investigations seriously.

Unfortunately, rape cases are very hard to convict (even in US) because police & prosecutors does not take rape investigations seriously.

They are hard to convict because usually there are no witnesses and it turns into he said / she said. I see a lot of people wishing it were not so, but the legal system has severe punishments and thus a high bar for conviction (or that's how it's supposed to be).

It's more complex than that. If we have words on the street, and I punch you and break your nose, you won't have any problems getting your complaint taken seriously. Nobody gets their nose broken for pleasure; even boxing clubs and so on have rules of conduct and activities are generally supervised to ensure conduct remains within those boundaries.

On the other hand, people have sex for pleasure a lot, and sexual activity is strongly linked to emotion, so if you come to the police with a tale of an unwelcome sexual encounter you have to answer all these extra questions about consent and secondary motive to get taken seriously. If a complainant doesn't show obvious signs of physical trauma indicating a violent struggle, then it can often be a problem to get the complaint of rape to be taken seriously and investigated urgently.

My impression is that in many countries, police officers are inadequately trained and often do not treat rape and sexual assault as seriously as they deserve.

I wouldn't want someone to either not marry me or not be my co-founder because of unproven gossip, rumor, allegations, or charges.

I'm sure. But as the potential partner of such a person, wouldn't it be wise to give a pass to someone with a blot on their record? Especially if there is no lack of candidates for the position or partner? Clearly that would improve their odds of finding an acceptable mate.

This sounds similar to the argument that you should avoid black people because they are more likely to be criminals; clearly that would improve your odds of finding an acceptable mate.

Conclusions: individuals are not odds.

In a purely mathematical sense, its advantageous to dismiss candidates with any defect or suspected defect. At least when there is an endless supply.

The trouble with discrimination is, it works so well.

> its advantageous to dismiss candidates with any defect or suspected defect

I agree; the problem is just that the society (and laws) judges different cases of discrimination completely differently, even though the underlying mathematical principles are the same. Don't hire a man because he could be a rapist? OK. Don't hire a woman because she might give birth? Outrageous.

@tomp

>even though the underlying mathematical principles are the same. Don't hire a man because he could be a rapist? OK. Don't hire a woman because she might give birth? Outrageous.

Yeah, one is not hiring someone who forces and hurts people for his sexual pleasure, the other is not hiring someone giving birth, something we celebrate, and helps human society continue existing.

I don't even know what "the underlying mathematical principles are the same" is supposed to mean, when the ethical differences are so vast. That there might be same chance of him being a rapist to her giving birth? How is that even relevant?

Oh for goodness sake. The point was, as an employer or potential partner, you want someone who will be effective in that role. Whilst being distracted would be a negative, regardless of the reason for that distraction. Not a moral argument; a statistical one as stated - avoid anyone with any chance of distraction is a valid game-theory strategy.

>Oh for goodness sake. The point was, as an employer or potential partner, you want someone who will be effective in that role.

That's how I understood it too.

I was pointing to the inhumanity of treating people as mere means to an end ("not effective") especially in the case of pregnant women (which translates to women should either not get pregnant because its bad for business or be unemployable when they consider to do so).

You say it's just a "statistical argument". That's what I responded to, too: that's it's not OK - at least to me - to do mere statistical arguments when moral judgements are involved. Or rather, it's ok to do them as science, but this is not that, this is how actual managers and employers think and treat employees.

An overly narrow view. A predictably potential rapist who was subsequently convicted would become permanently unavailable and and could bring down a huge liability on an employer. An employee who gives birth (or who becomes a father) is engaging in normal human activity; you treat that the same way you treat any other indisposition like an unexpected health condition, and hedge against it.

Really, ask yourself how you'd feel if a prospective employer or business partner said 'Joe, what assurance can you give me that you're not going to knock your wife up and go all googly-eyed over some squalling infant a year from now? Can you commit to tying a knot in it?'

Statistically, there are equally-qualified candidates with none of these problems. A moral-free algorithm would surely choose young unmarried technologists over any other kind. I'll repeat: the trouble with discrimination is, it works so well.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/10/delhi-rape-one-conv...

Of 706 reported rape cases, 1 lead to an actual conviction. So you have an under-reported category of crime which is irregularly prosecuted. There's obvious ethical issues with denying jobs to people based on accusation rather than conviction, but in a society with a broken justice system surrounding that, there's ethical dilemmas no matter how you slice it. There's also a serious question about how you rate the ethical utility of someone not being able to get a job in a specific area, versus possible endangerment of someone's life.

I would just like to point out, that the crimes aren't necessarily under-reported (i.e. 706 reported), rather, there was not enough evidence to convict.

I would still argue that there is a high amount of under-reporting because people are embarrassed, just want to put it behind them, etc. However, I also feel a large number of the reported cases are skewed due to angry ex-girlfriends, intoxication, etc.

Specifically, in this case if he was not convicted it's not the responsibility of Uber to disclose that information (instead it's the driver). Uber (in the U.S.) cannot even disclose if someone was accused of rape (unless there was a felony conviction), conversely it is the drivers responsibility to share any convictions upfront (though a background check should still be done).

Overall, I believe this has more to do with Uber's business practices. The rape wouldn't have even been an issue if Uber was capable of helping the police or explaining some basic questions.

In other words, if Uber was able to say, "We did a background check, and he wasn't convicted" then there wouldn't have been an issue. However, Uber couldn't even be contacted, and was breaking transportation laws.

>I would just like to point out, that the crimes aren't necessarily under-reported (i.e. 706 reported)

They were saying it is a generally under-reported crime. Saying that there was 706 reported cases doesn't change anything.

https://www.rainn.org/get-information/statistics/reporting-r...

Overall, your "feel" about a large number of reported cases being skewed are nothing but a feel. Proves nothing.

It's insane to discredit a valid point for being 'nothing but a feel'. You don't know if it's nothing or not. OP doesn't claim to prove anything and anyone reading can see that.

Well, false reports can not be considered false unless withdrew by the accuser. Otherwise is just a shot in the dark.

It is completely valid to discredit a point with no source. And there's sources that say it is 2% false accusations (like most other crimes) and there's sources that says is 40%. Why are numbers so separate from each other? Because it's a shot in the dark.

Withdrawn != false. There are many other reasons (social pressure, for example) why someone might withdraw an accusation. Particularly when the legal system is extremely unlikely to convict.

I would urge you to re-think your writing. "The rape wouldn't have even been an issue" indicates that you haven't thought very deeply about rape; if this woman was raped, it is certainly still an issue whether Uber can legally cover its ass or not.

It is unfortunate how popular your opinion is among young men: rape really isn't an issue; lots of "angry ex-girlfriends" and "intoxication" skewing those reports (factually incorrect, my friend). Being raped really sucks and is a continuing issue for those who experience it and those around them.

"The rape wouldn't have even been an issue [for Uber]"

It would still be an issue for Uber -- if nothing else, it's bad customer service and indicative of poor quality control. Can't people even admit that?

If someone was complaining about being overcharged, everyone would accept it without question and wouldn't say "it's not an issue" for Uber/consumer/whoever. But it seems that being overcharged is a complaint that is legitimate because men believe that it happens without the customer being in the wrong. Rape, on the other hand...

Companies have bad employees. People intuitively understand and forgive that. People are much less forgiving if the company does not help in dealing with its bad employees, or (is perceived to) have an unusually high number of them.

While the grandparent comment didn't claim his statement as a fact, you are mentioning your contradictory statement as a 'fact' (factually incorrect? What?) Being raped really sucks, yes, and IMO the rapist should get the most severe punishment imaginable, but being falsely accused of rape is even worse - it destroys the whole career and life of an innocent man - and this is something that happens a lot in India and anyone having a few contacts in Police knows that.

Also, not sure about other countries, in India a woman's statement is enough for a man to be arrested immediately, even if it was a false accusation.

> Being raped really sucks, yes,

> but being falsely accused of rape is even worse

Wow. Just wow. I'm pretty disgusted by this comment. Hopefully you've just phrased it badly, and can edit it to make it less like you're saying that men get a bum deal in India.

Thanks for confirming that rape is less important than a man's reputation :) Women know that already. That's why many don't report.

Having seen people report rape in the US, it is certainly not enough for anyone to be arrested immediately. There's the question of evidence, and whether anyone will look at the evidence, and whether the victim can be talked into ignoring it. In 2013 there were about 20,000 untested rape kits in Texas alone -- 20,000 crimes that were reported, where a woman had semen, hair, and other evidence collected through an invasive procedure, that were entirely ignored [1]. And that's only reported rapes. None of my friends who have been sexually assaulted have ever reported it (although these were all assaults by "friends", not strangers). They just wanted it to go away.

To top it off, in many locations in the US women still have to pay for their own evidence collection. If you haven't got the $600-$1200 it takes to pay for the exams yourself, you're out of luck on the prosecution front! (Yes, this is sort of illegal, but it's still happening [2].)

So rest easy -- come to the US where a woman's statement will probably be ignored for a long time [3].

[1] http://www.texastribune.org/2013/01/04/clearing-texas-rape-k... [2] http://www.nola.com/health/index.ssf/2014/09/state_leaders_p... [3] http://gawker.com/who-wants-to-remember-bill-cosbys-multiple...

No, I wouldn't say that had it 'just' been some reputation. As I already said an actual rapist should get the severest punishment imaginable, but I repeat, in a country like India, a man's (and his family's) entire life is ruined when he's falsely accused of rape. No one will befriend them, no one will lend them money, no one will marry even their siblings! I'm surprised that people here are so the unaware of the severity of a false accusation (may be just a cultural difference. In India it's a big social taboo). A girl falsely accusing (once proved to be false) a man of rape should get at least the same punishment in jail the man would have got had he been guilty.

I'm sorry for the state of affairs in the US about the claimed report ratio of the crime - however, a mere statement of anyone, by itself should never lead to an arrest, be it a man or a woman, because in a lot of cases there are ulterior motives in play.

Oh seriously. That's enough.

Post some examples of all these men's lives that have been ruined. Let's see whether these examples are, actually, worse than having been raped.

Keep an open, balanced mind, and learn to see things from both sides (this is not facebook). Rapes are as real as false cases. I'm not sure what are your criteria for deciding 'worse'. Mine is, more lives are ruined in a false rape case. As I said, anyone in contacts with police knows that. If you still don't want to believe, you can be happy assuming you got an 'online victory'. Many men have committed suicide due to that as well. Isn't that at least equally bad?

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/indore/Woman-sentenc...

If you search online, you'd find that there are many, many cases where an Indian girl elopes/lives with a man on free will, has consensual sex but after a few days, months, or even years files a rape case for various obvious reasons, surprisingly often when forced by parents.

You wouldn't 'like' to believe, but Pune police once said 74% of rape cases reported to them were consentual sex later turned rape. In fact Mumbai police says the main reason of the low conviction rate is false rape cases.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/Rape-convicti...

https://www.facebook.com/notes/deepika-narayan-bhardwaj/fals...

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ranchi/Lured-by-comp...

And a lot, lot more, just help yourselves with some Googling.

> However, I also feel a large number of the reported cases are skewed due to angry ex-girlfriends, intoxication, etc.

What are you actually trying to say here? How are these cases skewed?

That some accusations are not true, and that some rape never leads to accusations. Most rape is not ever reported, because of the psychological impact it has, and the kind of people clever rapists rape. The rapes that are reported stand in line with a sizable amount of accusations that are false. Sadly, for a jury to tease apart the liars from the valid accusers is hard. It's worse than chance, actually, because rape victims often react to talking about it, especially with the rapist in the room, in a manner which makes them look unconvincing.

What were you implying? That there's some easy answer here?

The use of "skewed" in that sentence doesn't make sense to me, and I'm trying to understand what he means. Is he saying that angry ex-girlfriends make false rape claims, which thus 'skew' the numbers, or does he mean something else?

Why would you think I'm implying anything?

> there's ethical dilemmas no matter how you slice it

You're exactly right. So the question becomes, "Is it better to disqualify applicants based on accusation alone, knowing that you'll disqualify some number of innocent people, or is it better to screen on convictions alone, knowing that you could possibly not screen out some guilty folks you otherwise would?"

You can go better than "accusation". Anyone could accuse anyone of anything. But you could set the bar in the middle with "arrested", which is half way between "accusation" and "conviction".

No it's not. Arrests can happen for only an accusation, or even less in some cases.

That's not really in the middle. The only difference between "accused" and "arrested" is that the accuser told the police.

In the experience of my friends with regards to sexual assaults in North America, there's a substantial gap between 'accuser told the police' and 'arrested'. I can't imagine it would be any closer of a gap in India.

Yes the accuser told the police, and the police thought there was suffecient reason to arrest the accused. That's the important difference. Sometimes the police are told, and they interview the accused and don't arrest them. Sometimes they do. The police are (in theory) supposed to have standards for who they arrest.

If on a sliding scale "conviction" is a 100 and "accusation" is a 20, "arrested" falls somewhere between 18 and 22.

Unfortunately there really is no middle ground. You can't point to an event and say that you're __% certain that the accusation is true. So again it boils down to whether you base the decision off of accusations or convictions alone.

As someone stated elsewhere it's not just an ethical decision, either. Economics should play at least a minor role in the decision-making process.

Is it? I was accused of a robbery when i was a teenager. I was arrested on another kids claim that i had broken into his garage. No supporting evidence, no other testimony. The charges were dropped, but I was cuffed and taken in.

Which is more profitable? Unfortunately such decisions often made on the basis of profit over ethics.

Screening on convictions alone may be more profitable in the short term but in the long run, as the article here shows, it may end up costing you much more.

I'm not sure it's accurate to say that this instance (or the choice to screen based on proven actions rather than accusations) is what led to the ban.

It might also be illegal to deny employment to people just because they are accused of something and not convicted. Indian law assumes the culprit is innocent till proven otherwise.

Indian law takes infinite years to resolve a case. 1 year to actually frame charges, 10 years in lower court and 10 years in upper courts.

Absolutely, the question presupposes it's even up to the hiring company to make the distinction and that it hasn't already been made for them by the law.

On the question of 'is it better to exclude non-rapists than include rapists', especially in the case of claiming that their service is safer than taxis (which they do all the time, unless someone points to a counterexample at which point they disclaim all responsibility): I would say yes.

Is it legal to discriminate against employees who've been accused but not convicted of a crime? Well, no.

Is anything else Uber is doing in India legal? No.

So… if they're breaking the law anyway, plus making sure to hide everything they do, including basic contact information, from anyone who might need to contact the company (to the extent that the government themselves had to hire a driver just to get in touch with someone), I feel like denying employment to someone convicted of a violent sexual assault would probably be the least unethical thing going on with Uber in India.

I think it's better to quantify it and change the question to 'Is it better to include X non-rapists and Y rapists than to exclude X non-rapists and Y rapists.'

'Is it better to include into the set of Uber drivers, 10 non-rapists and 1 rapists or to exclude 10 non-rapists and 1 rapists.'

Probably the latter.

'Is it better to include, into the set of NYC residents, 5 million non-rapists and 3 rapists than to exclude 5 million non-rapists and 3 rapists.'

Probably the former.

Let me just remind everyone here that in India, it's easy to falsify most documents, so relying on some sort of governmental agency for background is itself negligence. I would expect better from Uber knowing how ruthless they are and I'm disappointed. That said, the Indian government, which is a monument to human incompetence and corruption can't shouldn't really get away with this ham-fisted reaction.

The legal process can move very slowly in India. It can take a decade for trials even for crimes with solid evidence.

I think it's worth looking at this as the intersections of two contexts. One is the one that's mostly discussed below, how do you assess the criminality of someone who was arrested but not convicted. We are all, I hope, familiar with the particular complexities of rape as it's both harder to prove and often carries unusually negative consequences for the accuser, compared to an accusation that someone robber you or whatever, as well as India's particular cultural situation.

The other one though, is the context of what job you're hiring someone for; in this case, to be a sort-of taxi driver. That means the person you hire is inevitably going to come in contact with some potentially vulnerable individuals as passengers (and I bet it wouldn't be too hard to make estimates on the probability of any given journey having a single female passenger). If there's a suspicion that the person might exploit that fact, then you shouldn't hire that person as a driver. That's a bit unfair to some potential drivers, but the flipside is that you have ethical obligations to both employees and customers.

For other contexts, the calculus is different. For example, if I was Uber I would not be too worried about a previous conviction for auto theft, since drivers supply their own cars, and if the applicant has not been in trouble for a reasonable length of time then Uber doesn't really have any assets at risk. Likewise, I could perhaps be more open-minded about an arrest without a conviction for assault if I were hiring someone to do server maintenance vs. hiring them as a driver, as the probability of an offense x the number of personal encounters an employee would have in the course of normal duties would be much lower.

Agreed! If anything, the law and the enforcement agencies should be questioned on how the accused was let loose if he was guilty of rape earlier. Here's a screenshot doing rounds of the clean record certificate given by the Delhi police to the accused for Uber, though not confirmed by the police themselves: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B4UpufJCAAEDCqC.jpg

> The alleged driver had previously served 7 months in prison for rape charges, that didn't stop Uber from recruiting him.

mostly because he had No Objection Certificate from Delhi Police itself [0] that his history is clean?

EDIT: This image could be fake too, I can't trust our Indian media houses either :|

[0] - http://i.imgur.com/rwjhHBq.jpg

source of [0] - https://twitter.com/timesnow/status/541885210573275136

Looks like a lazy cop issue is underway in the Delhi Police Department.

NOC doesn't mean his record is clean, or he is safe to hire. NOC means, that DP doesn't have any issues with him getting recruited anywhere (ofcourse if people with records of served sentence aren't going to get a job, they will get into more shady things).

Uber on its own, had to follow its marketing pitch at least(that it checks bla bla bla). But then again, that didn't happen, and that is the basis of the outburst here.

Well the certificate mentions he has no criminal records.

Delhi Police say that the character certificate is fake. The person whose signature appear on the certificate was posted in Mizoram. [0]

[0]: https://twitter.com/invincibleidea/status/541951277245005824

I don't quite understand the wording on the website. The article said the driver was acquitted; would a proper screening still have disqualified him, given his acquittal?

Quick disclaimer: clearly, given what you said, Uber needs to dramatically change how it operates in India, and thorough background checks are hugely important for a commercial transport service. I'm just wondering if it would have been enough to prevent this particular crime from happening.

If Uber didn't hire this driver, this crime could have been prevented.

Delhi laws require all cabs to have an onboard GPS: "The vehicle must be fitted with GPS/GPRS based tracking devises which must be in constant communication with the Central Control unit while the vehicles is on duty."

Uber didn't even have an on-board always on GPS, their only way to track is through mobile app; which the driver conveniently turned off.

How would that have achieved anything?

You want a Minority Report-esque flying police department that drops themselves onto the road if the driver veers off route?

It seems to be doing okay with other cabs which have been operating for much longer.

Can you provide evidence for that?

It seems common sense that a GPS unit, even one that cannot be disabled, would only be useful as evidence to follow up on after an alleged crime took place. I don't see any way to use it to prevent a crime happening in the first place.

Knowing that there will be evidence to follow up on after a crime is committed is often enough to deter the crime from being committed.

Why is location that the rape took place relevant? What triggers the investigation is the allegation, not GPS data.

Look, I'm not trying to be dense here. But the idea that the crime would not have happened if Uber cars had undisableable GPS doesn't seem totally well thought out. After all, "you switched off your phone GPS between these times with someone in the car" is nearly as damning as "you pulled over into a quiet area and the car stopped for a while before it drove onwards".

Additionally, I thought Uber tracks drivers through the customers GPS? That's how they know the car took a longer than expected route? If they relied on the drivers app to self-report it'd only be a matter of time until someone made an app that fed false data to Uber and started selling it to bent cabbies.

No, uber tracks via the drivers GPS (at least in the US and UK). I have ordered Ubers for my family and friends; my phone wasn't heading towards the destination, but I could track where the car was on my phone. I find this a useful safety feature to make sure my family gets home.

I never made the argument "that the crime would not have happened if Uber cars had undisableable GPS". You were the one that claimed that it "would only be useful as evidence to follow up on after an alleged crime took place". I don't know whether it would be useful in that manner. I was simply pointing out that if it is useful in that way then it would act as a deterrent. In other words, I found the combination of the two sentences prior to my comment to be incorrect: that something could be used as follow up to a crime happening without affecting the likelihood of the crime happening. I was not commenting on the specifics.

Well, it would have meant abiding by the law...

Yeah, the crime would have been prevented if Uber hadn't hired the driver, and I hadn't known about the GPS, which is also key. My question is more "would Uber's background check process have caused the driver not to have been hired".

>If Uber didn't hire this driver, this crime could have been prevented.

How about, the crime wouldn't have committed if the rapist didn't rape? Taking the blame away from him is as dumb as blaming the victim.

I know uber is flouting regulatory laws in India but banning the company outright is definitely not the right solution. And again there is the question that how the said ban is going to be imposed. The Union Transport Ministry of India has given a statement saying banning uber doesn't make sense [1] Also, in a developing country like India, with no centralized repository of past records, it's extremely tough to do background checks. [2] It's busy to blame the system, but here the system in my opinion is more at fault than Uber. Clearly, uber provides a net value-add of hailing a taxi over traditional taxi services. Rather than banning them, a better way will be to have a digitized system where past records of a driver can be viewed and making it accessible to all taxi companies. Just strengthening regulations is not enough. There should be clear ways and benefits of operating within the regulatory framework.

[1] http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/Banning-Uber-d... [2] http://fortune.com/2014/12/08/in-defense-of-uber-in-india/

He is saying press@uber.com and not Paisa Dooba.

>The alleged driver had previously served 7 months in prison for rape charges,

Only 7 months for rape?

That does seem absurdly low. I would think at least a couple years for a rape charge at the very least.

He was not convicted.

When not convicted, that is some serious time.

It's ancillary to the discussion, but I'm not sure of the due diligence which can reliably and certifiably be completed in India. There may be assumptions made from a belief that these things are present.

Rather than down-voting, open to hearing otherwise. Didn't mean to offend, just an understanding of what is possible out there.

Very true. If the Indian government were to shut down modes of transportation because of drivers engaging in rape, then you'd never see a rickshaw on the streets.

http://indianexpress.com/article/cities/kolkata/woman-gangra...

http://www.ndtv.com/article/cities/delhi-13-year-old-girl-al...

I've spoken with one woman since this incident. She stills considers radio cabs (taxi4sure, specifically) safer than rickshaws or flagged cabs (i.e., flagging a taxi rather than using an app).

It's rather unlikely that banning Uber will do much. I suspect that a Beretta in every purse is the only real solution, but it's also a solution that the government will never support. Only rich people and jewelry stores deserve to be protected by guns.

Plenty of countries don't have guns in every purse without rampant rapists. I think there are different solutions to the problem, like promoting a culture where women are equal.

Which do you think will reduce rape right now? A bunch of rapists showing up at hospitals with holes in them, or some sort of education campaign to change the culture?

If things can get better in 10 years that's great. I'd also like the women I care about to be safe tomorrow. A few dead rapists is a small price to pay for that.

If you want to reduce rape right now, you should start by putting more effort into getting rapists in jail. Currently three fourths of the rapists get away scot free. Get the police to do their job, don't force everybody to be their own police.

Getting the police to do their job would be great. How do you do it? Before answering that, ask yourself "why aren't they currently doing it?"

Currently three fourths of the rapists get away scot free.

Unless I'm failing to understand something, this statistic is almost unknowable. Can you explain?

The only problem with your solution is that it would very likely increase the rate of murder, probably much more than it would decrease the rate of rape. (At least in EU and other countries where weapons are generally banned.)

Nice victim blaming - they got raped because they didn't want to shoot someone.

Singling me out for nonsensical comments based on a wild misreading of my posts has reached the point of silliness. Why do you bother?

Your suggestion - that women should carry guns - ignores the society that doesn't condemn rape; the courts that don't convict rapists; and the police who don't arrest rapists.

It ignores the fact that people have to be 21 to get a gun and gun ownership is not guaranteed.

You migt not think you're blaming the victims but here tou definitely are. You are saying that women who don't carry guns are to blame for being raped, and for other women being raped. Did you realise that when you wrote it? Is this an example of you "asking difficult questions"?

...ignores the society that doesn't condemn rape; the courts that don't convict rapists; and the police who don't arrest rapists... ignores the fact that...gun ownership is not guaranteed.

You got me. If I didn't ignore those things I probably would have written this:

"Which do you think will reduce rape right now?...change the culture?"

"Getting the police to do their job would be great. How do you do it?"

"...a Beretta in every purse is the only real solution, but it's also a solution that the government will never support. Only rich people and jewelry stores deserve to be protected by guns."

You are saying that women who don't carry guns are to blame for being raped...Did you realise that when you wrote it?

I didn't realize I was sending secret messages that can only be decoded by you, no.

Suggesting an action to mitigate the failings of society is not the same as blaming those societal failings on women. If someone organizes a group of women to try to pass better rape laws, are they blaming the victims for not lobbying enough? Why is it that suggesting anything to help until the situation gets fixed makes everyone assume you don't want the situation fixed?

I'm not defending or attacking his position, I just think these hair-trigger accusations of victim-blaming are harming your cause far more than they're helping, since they make people tune out actual victim-blaming. Regardless of the merit of his suggestion, its silly to say he's blaming the victim when he's not, and clearly didn't intend to. It would be perfectly acceptable to actually argue against his statement, but this "anything that isn't focussed solely on changing society is victim-blaming" is getting ridiculous, and trivializes the disturbing reality of actual victim-blaming. (for example, the quote I read the other day which said "something like that doesn't just happen, she must have done something to get herself in that kind of situation").

As a disclaimer: I don't think his suggestion is a realistic solution on a widespread basis, though it may be helpful in individual cases. Just because someone might suggest, for example, that their sister carry a gun if she goes to the red-light district at night, doesn't mean they're going to blame her if she doesn't carry and gets raped.

There is but a small problem, nothing prevents any soon-to-be rapists from getting guns themselves.

We have many jurisdictions in the US where open or concealed carry is legal, and even someone with an unlicenseed gun would likely face only a minimal sentence on a weapons charge if it were used for self-protection in a violent confrontation. While Google does turn up some reports of women shooting would-be rapists, it doesn't seem to be that common. We could generalize fromt hat to observe that we still have other forms of crime like mugging, assault, etc. despite the widespread availability of guns, and at considerably higher rates than many other developed countries.

Lastly, you only seem to be considering the sudden-assault-by-stranger sort of rapes, whereas many rapes (and other crimes) are committed by someone who has established a degree of trust, either by default (as a relative or some other social context) or by design (as in date rape or some sort of 'long con' predatory behavior).

The problem with your approach is that it can be used to sideline people who choose not to carry weapons, as well as normalizing the carrying of weapons in every context - 'shouldn't woman take guns with them into the shower, just in case? Isn't it a bit irresponsible to leave oneself defenseless in the shower, where it may be hard to hear someone break into the house?'

One could equally suggest that every woman get herself a large dog. People are extremely respectful of personal space if you step out with a German Shepherd; my neighbor observes that she feels quite safe taking a nap at a park or beach in the company of her dogs. But just because anyone could do this doesn't mean everyone should do this.

Legalizing weapons will lead to more women being raped. AND then shot. Which group do you think will be using arms more - 20-30yo uneducated, poor and agressive men or 13yo children and mothers of two.

A few days ago my girlfriend took a swing at me. I just let her go ahead - she had basically no real ability to harm me short of hitting me in the eye. Let me emphasize she's bigger and stronger than any Indian woman I've met. If I did anything other than stand there and let her hit me, it wouldn't even be a fight.

Now give us both a gun. I'm probably a better shot, less afraid, and under close-up circumstances I can just wrestle it away. My odds of walking away safe are far worse because she may just shoot me before I can do anything.

Most people who want to be rapists don't need a weapon to do so - men are nearly always stronger than women. Arming both parties brings the odds closer to even.

South Africa has a very high rate of rape and private gun ownership is permitted, what do you suggest there?

Keeping in theme, the traditional solution was put all the dark skinned people into enclaves and declare the problem solved.

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