MESSAGE
| DATE | 2020-12-15 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Subject: [Hangout - NYLXS] Funding Local Government on the post-COVID-19 Age
|
Uber fined $59 million for dodging questions about sexual assaults
https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/14/22174943/uber-sexual-assault-fine-california-public-utility-commission-report-59-million
Uber fined $59 million for dodging questions about sexual assaults
Sean O'Kane
3-4 minutes
Uber has 30 days to pay a $59 million fine to California’s Public
Utilities Commission (CPUC) for failing to answer the regulator’s
questions about a damning safety report released by the company in
December 2019. If Uber doesn’t pay up and answer the outstanding
questions, CPUC could suspend the company’s license to operate in the
state, an administrative law judge ruled on Monday.
It’s the latest development in Uber’s long history of trouble with
violence and assault between its drivers and passengers — trouble that
competitor Lyft shares, too. News of the fine was first reported by The
San Francisco Chronicle.
The report, which Uber itself called “jarring” at the time, detailed
thousands of sexual assaults in the US that happened in 2017 and 2018
during trips taken with the company’s ride-hailing platform. While the
84-page report included a fair amount of data in aggregate, CPUC wanted
to know more shortly after it was released — especially because Uber
admitted in the fine print that the report did not “assess or take any
position on whether any of the reported incidents actually occurred.”
The CPUC has regulatory authority over transportation companies in the
state and regularly investigates complaints against them. So it asked
Uber a handful of questions about who authored the report, and also
asked Uber for specific details on each incident of assault.
Uber never answered the questions, claiming that further disclosure
would present a privacy risk for both the assault survivors as well as
its employees. In January 2020, a judge denied the company’s request to
avoid answering, saying Uber could file the answers under seal in order
to protect confidentiality. Uber continued to fight answering the CPUC’s
questions throughout the year until up Monday’s ruling, though.
In the ruling, the judge described those efforts as little more than
“specious legal roadblocks” meant to “frustrate the Commission’s ability
to gather information” about whether Uber is operating safely. They did,
however, say that Uber can use “a code or some other signifier rather
than a victim’s name” when it eventually answers the CPUC’s questions.
The judge arrived at the $59 million figure by levying a $7,500 fine for
every specific time that Uber refused to answer each question during the
process.
“Uber is a billion-dollar business that can easily afford to pay ...
[e]ven during a pandemic where ridership has undoubtedly declined,” the
judge wrote.
The CPUC has been “insistent in its demands that we release the full
names and contact information of sexual assault survivors without their
consent,” Uber said in a statement to The Verge. “We opposed this
shocking violation of privacy, alongside many victims’ rights advocates.
Now, a year later, the CPUC has changed its tune: we can provide
anonymized information—yet we are also subject to a $59 million fine for
not complying with the very order the CPUC has fundamentally altered.”
Uber further said these “punitive and confusing actions will do nothing
to improve public safety and will only create a chilling effect as other
companies consider releasing their own reports. Transparency should be
encouraged, not punished.”
--
So many immigrant groups have swept through our town
that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological
proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998
http://www.mrbrklyn.com
DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS - RI Safir 2002
http://www.nylxs.com - Leadership Development in Free Software
http://www.brooklyn-living.com
Being so tracked is for FARM ANIMALS and extermination camps,
but incompatible with living as a free human being. -RI Safir 2013
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