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Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing

(www.bbc.com)
256 points reubensutton | 1 comments | 25 Nov 19 10:19 UTC | HN request time: 0.306s | source
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caithrin ◴[25 Nov 19 10:50 UTC] No.21626966[source]▶
"Only in the last few months it has been established that 14,000 Uber journeys have involved fraudulent drivers uploading their photos to other driver accounts - with passengers' safety potentially put at risk getting into cars with unlicensed and suspended drivers."

This seems, from a technical perspective, an easy problem to solve with the resources of a public company.

Is it the desperation of people who need the money so badly they will constantly cheat the system? Can you design for that?

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onion2k ◴[25 Nov 19 11:02 UTC] No.21627015[source]▶
This seems, from a technical perspective, an easy problem to solve with the resources of a public company.

Is it the desperation of people who need the money so badly they will constantly cheat the system? Can you design for that?

I don't think the motivation on the part of the drivers who do this is very important. They're intentionally deceiving Uber customers, and in some cases endangering them. That just has to stop, even if the driver is desperate. The point here is that it's Uber's responsibility to stop it happening, and Uber has apparently chosen not to (like you, it's not that hard). That will be very hard to justify, especially as Uber were running TV ads about how they do background checks on all their drivers here in the UK recently.

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1. slfnflctd ◴[25 Nov 19 12:18 UTC] No.21627432[source]▶
I'm an Uber driver in the U.S. midwest (so I'm not sure if they're operating the same way in London), but every so often they make me take a live selfie within their app or I cannot accept new rides.

It's a pain in the ass to have to pull over and do this sometimes, but it does seem like they're trying to do the right thing with it. I will say that at first it made me pretty angry, but when I realized the implication - that someone has probably already tried to fraudulently hand control to a different driver - it gave me chills and I realized they may not have many other options.