Uber puts passengers at risk with a flawed driver-approval process

Uber, the San Francisco-based private taxi firm, is putting its passengers in grave danger. The company uses a computerized driver sign-up system that can be easily fooled into authorizing drives with fake insurance papers.  The transport network exploded onto the scene a few years ago, and a whistleblower claims that it is all too easy to cheat the system making it possible for virtually anyone to sign up to be an Uber driver.

The vulnerability was found to have been exploited in London where there are around 15,000 Uber drivers in operation. The scam has been demonstrated by The Guardian who worked with a whistleblower to fraudulently sign up as a driver. It was achieved using fabricated insurance papers from a made up company with a fake letterhead.

Uber recently cut its fares in a bid to attract more customers, and this was a bill that drivers had to shoulder. It is claimed that in order to save money, some drivers are failing to pay for insurance and use false papers to gain Uber authorization. Working in conjunction with The Guardian, the whistleblower uploaded a fake insurance policy from a non-existent insurance company. Despite the lack of genuine paperwork, he was approved to pick up paying customers.

The driver claims he actually had genuine insurance in place, but uploaded the fake documents to illustrate a point to the wider public. He has since been removed from Uber's books and reported to the police. Uber responded by saying that the illegitimate driver approval was "a unique situation triggered by a deliberate attempt to try and cheat the system" and said that it would implement a limit on which insurers it would allow drivers to use in an attempt to prevent the same thing from happening again.

A spokesperson put the fake document approval down to human error:

We are going through our processes and evaluating them to make sure something like this can’t happen again. It was checked. It was a case of human error. The team involved has been spoken to to ensure our high level of practice has been maintained at all times.

The company stressed that if an accident occurred involving an Uber car driven by someone without the necessary insurance, the incident would still be covered by its separate corporate insurance policy.