Updated: 2019/01/22 2:00PM
Uber is in the middle of both class action and criminal lawsuits that claim the ride sharing service is unsafe for women. In April 2018, CNN published an investigation into Uber’s issue with sexual assaults and discovered that there were 103 uber drivers accused of sexual assault of abuse while using the app.
In one case a woman took an uber home after a night of drinking, only to wake up with her driver on top of her, raping her one block from her own home. The driver, John David Sanchez, was sentenced to 80 years in prison after police found 5 years worth of videos of Sanchez raping women and abusing teens.
And that is not a standalone case. At the time of the CNN report, at least 31 drivers had been convicted for crimes ranging from forcible touching to false imprisonment to rape. There are dozens of criminal and civil cases pending as a result.
There is also the class action suit being brought against the company on behalf of 9 plaintiffs who said that they were assaulted by drivers. Uber is attempting to compel the women to carry out their case through arbitration because that is what is outline in the app’s terms of service. When users sign up for the app, they agree to the terms, which state that the rider must resolve any claim “on an individual basis in arbitration.” The women are urging Uber to remove the clause in their terms of service, saying that it silences them and the issue at hand.
After the report by CNN was published, Uber said that it would be releasing its own report outlining how it would categorize sexual misconduct, sexual assault and rape claims involving its drivers and passengers. Their goal is to be transparent in reporting the number of sexual assaults and other incidents that occur on its platform. It is expected that they release the data that they gather sometime in 2019.