With safety as our top priority

The safety of all users of our app is at the heart of everything we do. Our work on improving safety therefore never stops. We recently launched a new overview of the safety features available in the app for riders. When you go to your account in the Uber app, you will see the ‘Safety checkup’. When you open the Safety checkup, you can choose which safety features you want to enable. Against this backdrop, we’d like to take the opportunity to tell you more about our safety work.

In this blog post, we focus on our safety work for riders. You can read more about our safety work for drivers here. 

Always licensed, professional taxi drivers

As a rider, you can be confident that all drivers using the Uber app are professional taxi drivers with the same eligibility and licenses as all taxi drivers in Sweden, as required by the Swedish Transport Agency. 

Taxi drivers using the Uber app offer their services to riders through a fleet company or their own taxi company. This means that they are driving via a fleet or run their own taxi company. This is a very common model throughout the Swedish taxi industry. Some drivers choose to drive full-time, others part-time. What they have in common is that they can always choose if, when, where and for how long they want to log in to the app and offer trips. 

What is required to use the Uber app as a driver?

In order to register to offer rides via the Uber app, the fleet or taxi company offering the taxi services needs to present a valid taxi license. The vehicle(s) used to provide the taxi services must also be licensed for taxi services, be fully insured and equipped with a taximeter. In order to take on assignments as a taxi driver, a driver must present a valid driving license and a valid taxi driver’s license issued by the Swedish Transport Agency. This means that the driver must meet the Swedish Transport Agency’s requirements for a taxi driver’s license, which includes an extract from the criminal record. 

Uber is also connected to the so-called BKY system. This enables daily checks of all taxi driver IDs and taxi traffic permits among all fleets and independent drivers using Uber’s app in Sweden, against the Swedish Transport Agency’s database. This means that if a driver’s taxi driver ID is flagged as invalid – for example after the validity of their license has expired or if a taxi driver for other reasons is no longer deemed suitable to drive – we can take action immediately. Similarly, a fleet or independent taxi company can be suspended if their taxi license is not valid. This means that we can check on a daily basis that no licenses that are invalid according to the Swedish Transport Agency can be used to use Uber’s app. 

We thus check both that taxi drivers and fleets and taxi companies have valid licenses to use the app when they register to drive via the Uber app, and then on a daily basis so that we can take immediate action in cases where licenses are flagged as invalid.  

What happens in case of reported incidents?

Our community guidelines, which all drivers and riders agree to before accessing our platform, are in place to create a safe and respectful experience for all users of our app. The guidelines make it clear that drivers are required to follow the law, help keep all users of the app safe and treat each other with respect. For example, all forms of abuse, harassment and discrimination are explicitly prohibited. 

If riders have experienced violations of the guidelines, or in other ways had a negative experience when booking a trip via our app, it is important that the incident is reported to us as soon as possible. This can be done by accessing the trip in question in the app and clicking on “Report safety issues”. We have recently introduced a feature that also makes it easier to report problems for canceled trips. Whichever way a rider contacts us in the app, we can help them to report incidents. The sooner the incident is reported to us, the sooner we can take action. 

We take all reported violations of the guidelines very seriously, and we have a specialized team of trained experts to handle these reports. When we receive reports of serious incidents, we always take immediate action, start an investigation, and pending the type of incident it may lead to suspension from using the app. 

We can’t always notify riders of the action taken in individual cases

We are not always able to inform riders of the actions we have taken after reported incidents. This may be the case when we deactivated a driver from the app following a reported incident by a rider. The reason is that we are bound by data protection legislation, and thus cannot share information about other users with a third party. It is important to emphasize that this does not mean that we have not taken action. 

Cooperation with the police 

In cases of specific incidents, we also encourage riders to report the incident to the police. We work closely with the police, and our specialized safety team is available 24/7 to support the police in case they require information for their investigations. Police can request information from Uber at any time via this page. 

Technology to make traveling even safer

We are also convinced that technology has the potential to make traveling safer, which is why we are constantly working on developing different safety features in the app to increase safety for all users. For example, to ensure that the right driver is behind the wheel, we apply real-time face matching. This means that a driver can be prompted by the app to stop the car and take a selfie that is matched with the account photo to ensure the right person is behind the wheel. 

Some additional examples of security features in the Uber app: 

Learn more about Uber’s safety efforts for riders here. If you have any questions, please contact us directly via the app or https://help.uber.com/.