SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 19 (UPI) — Ride-sharing service Uber missed criminal records — including convictions for sexual assault and murder — on more than two dozen drivers it cleared to shuttle customers, two California district attorneys said Wednesday.
The new allegations were made by the district attorneys of San Francisco and Los Angeles in an amendment to a civil lawsuit filed in December.
“Most of this complaint, these amendments, are coming as a result of additional discovery,” San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón said. “In the discovery we are learning increasingly that a lot of the information that Uber has been presenting the consumer has been false and misleading.”
Gascón said some of the drivers had prior convictions for sex offenses, identity theft, burglary, kidnapping and murder.
“We learned of systemic failures in Uber’s background checks,” Gascón said at a news conference Wednesday.
Uber says on its website it considers safety its paramount concern.
“Ridesharing and livery drivers in the U.S. are screened through a process that includes county, federal and multi-state criminal background checks,” the website says. “Uber also reviews drivers’ motor vehicle records throughout their time driving with Uber.”
The company responded Wednesday by saying, “the reality is that [no system] is 100 percent foolproof — as we discovered last year when putting hundreds of people through our checks who identified themselves as taxi drivers. That process uncovered convictions for DUI, rape, attempted murder, child abuse and violence.”
Uber, which was founded in 2010, is valued by analysts at about $50 billion.
Last month, an Uber driver in Texas was arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting a passenger. The company later said that particular driver should not have been cleared to transport passengers.
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