Uber Hires Personnel Screening Firm To Vet Drivers In India

Uber Technologies Inc. has hired First Advantage, a background screening provider, to vet its drivers in India to provide an additional layer of checks, after a driver who had signed up with the rideshare provider was accused of rape by a passenger in New Delhi in December.

That complaint had led to a temporary ban on Uber and its local competitors such as Ola Cabs, prompting the cab share startups to buttress their safety processes, including adding independent GPS units to the cabs, establishing control rooms and including a panic button in the mobile apps that cab hailers downloaded on their Android or iOS phones.

“Our arrangement with First Advantage brings in additional layers of screening over and above the standard transport licensing process including: address verification, a local criminal court search, and a national criminal database search,” Uber said in a blog post on Monday.

Uber Technologies Inc. has hired First Advantage, a background-screening provider, to vet its drivers in India to provide an additional layer of checks, after a driver who had signed up with the rideshare provider was accused of rape by a passenger in New Delhi in December.

That complaint had led to a temporary ban on Uber and its local competitors such as Ola Cabs, prompting the cab-share startups to enhance their safety processes, including adding independent GPS units to the cabs, establishing control rooms and including a panic button in the mobile apps that cab hailers downloaded onto their smartphones.

“Our arrangement with First Advantage brings in additional layers of screening over and above the standard transport licensing process including: address verification, a local criminal court search, and a national criminal database search,” Uber said in a blog post on Monday.

“We have been pilot testing the new screening process with First Advantage in recent weeks, and many thousands of driver-partners are in the process of being put through the screening and re-verification program in several Indian cities, including Delhi, to bring the highest screening standards to Uber users around the country,” the California-based company said.

First Advantage provides background screening for over 45,000 organizations worldwide, processing over 23 million screens annually, according to the post.

“We have been pilot testing the new screening process with First Advantage in recent weeks, and many thousands of driver-partners are in the process of being put through the screening and re-verification program in several Indian cities, including Delhi, to bring the highest screening standards to Uber users around the country,” the California company said.

First Advantage provides background screening for more than 45,000 organizations worldwide, processing over 23 million screens annually, according to the post.