Uber introduced new changes to its app to improve the safety of its users by launching new verification for riders, and a feature that enables drivers to record video and audio during trips.
The new Uber verification feature will be made available nationwide on Wednesday and the company's "Record My Ride" is already available for all drivers after a successful pilot, according to an announcement from Uber on Tuesday.
In an exclusive first look on "Good Morning America," which aired on Wednesday, ABC News transportation correspondent Gio Benitez provided a walkthrough of how the new verification process is being used to make sure riders are who they say they are.
"So, most Uber users will be automatically verified," Benitez explained. "You won't have to do anything, but if you do, this is how you do it."
On your profile, Benitez said users can select identity verification to add their ID.
"Choose ID, and it's basically going to ask me to take a photo of the ID and a selfie because it's going to match the two photos," he continued. "I'm taking a photo of my ID and now it's asking me to take a selfie."
Once the process is completed, a blue check will appear on the user's account.
Speaking to "GMA" in an interview aired on Wednesday, Dara Khosrowshahi, the CEO of Uber, agreed when Benitez described the feature as almost similar to "TSA pre-check."
"Exactly and see, I say pre-check makes everyone on the plane feel safer," he said, adding that the feature will also benefit the riders especially when requesting riders during late nights.
"If you have a verified badge, you have an advantage over someone who might not be verified in a driver accepting a ride," he said.
Uber driver L. Denise told "GMA" that she would be more likely to pick up verified riders for peace of mind.
"If you're verified, it just helps us say, 'Yep, we'll get that ride,'" she said. "You'll get a ride quicker. You won't have to wait. You won't have to get canceled on once people know, like, 'Hey this neighborhood, I'm really not sure about it,' once you're verified, it just makes life easier for everybody."
Another feature Uber launched to provide extra layers of protection for drivers is "Record My Ride."
The feature allows the drivers to use their front-facing camera to record video and audio during trips.
Recordings are encrypted directly on the driver's device and cannot be accessed unless the driver submits the file as part of a safety report.
Riders will also see a notification in the app if they are matched with a driver with the feature enabled.
The newly added level of security came after several recent attacks on drivers, including one incident that was caught on camera that took place in New York City in August when a woman pepper-sprayed her Uber driver and was later charged with assault.
The woman, Jennifer Guilbeault, 23, was later arraigned on charges of assault as a hate crime, according to the Manhattan District Attorney's Office. She was granted supervised release following the arraignment and is due back in court on Oct. 3.
Shortly after the incident occurred, an Uber spokesperson called the woman's actions "deplorable" in a statement to WABC in August.
"Violence is not tolerated, and the rider has been banned from the Uber platform," the statement read. "We will support police in their investigation however we can."
For years, Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc. have squared off against local authorities and labor groups to keep drivers classified as independent contractors rather than employees.
The designation excludes workers from traditional employment rights such as a flat minimum wage and union protections. In exchange, the ride-hailing companies have generally been expected to provide drivers with some—but not all—of the benefits they would receive as employees.
What’s resulted is a patchwork of idiosyncratic rules and regulations that vary widely from city to city and state to state. In some places, drivers have held protests in favor of more pay and benefits that companies typically offer full-time staff, such as health insurance. As Uber’s stock price hit an all-time high in February, thousands of drivers staged a Valentine’s Day strike across 10 major US cities to protest rideshare pay rates. Then in July, drivers marched on Uber’s New York City offices to demand better earning opportunities.
The very next week, ride-hailing companies scored a major victory in California when the state’s top court upheld Proposition 22, a law that allows gig-economy companies to classify their workers as independent contractors. In June, both Uber and Lyft ended a four-year legal battle in Massachusetts with a $175 million settlement and an agreement to pay workers $32.50 an hour for their active driving time, along with paid sick leave and a cash stipend for health insurance. Other arrangements that provide some benefits to drivers have been reached in states including Minnesota and Washington.
Is there a better way to do this?
The Case For
The rideshare industry relies on drivers who pay for their own vehicles, gas, cleaning, and maintenance—not to mention the personal risk they take on when driving other people. Paying workers more, labor activists argue, not only is a moral imperative but also would result in a better, more reliable rideshare workforce that benefits both drivers and consumers.
Contrary to the popular image of the part-time or between-jobs gig worker, about 19% of Uber drivers work more than 35 hours a week. That full-time schedule leaves little room for shifting hours because certain times of day (morning rush hour, for instance) are much better for earning than others. Terri Gerstein, director of the NYU Wagner Labor Initiative and former deputy commissioner for the New York State Department of Labor, says this is a “core issue” when it comes to classifying rideshare workers as employees.
“Is it OK to pretend every single Uber driver is running an independent business?” she asks. “Do you really think that every driver is an independent entrepreneur? No.”
Wharton School professor Lindsey Cameron says the company’s long game is to consolidate the market and ultimately raise prices. Cameron, who gave expert testimony in the Massachusetts case, says Uber had been undercharging for its services while squeaking financially with the help of venture capital. In 2023 the company posted its first annual profit since its 2019 initial public offering.
The Case Against
Increasing what drivers earn would almost certainly raise the cost of rides. Uber Chief Executive Officer Dara Khosrowshahi wrote in an op-ed article for the New York Times in August 2020 that having to employ full-time drivers would mean higher fares and, in turn, fewer customers and drivers.
“I do think it would raise prices for customers in a way that would be prohibitive,” says Erin Hatton, author of The Temp Economy: From Kelly Girls to Permatemps in Postwar America and a sociology professor at the University at Buffalo.
In opposing worker reclassification efforts such as California’s Assembly Bill AB 5—legislation that Proposition 22 later overturned—the ride-hailing companies have argued that full-fledged employment would compromise the flexibility many drivers depend on. In an Uber-commissioned survey, 77% of drivers said a flexible work schedule is more important than receiving benefits.
Revel Transit Inc., an electric-vehicle hailing company in Brooklyn, New York, laid off its driver employees in June in favor of operating a gig-work, pay-per-ride model more akin to Uber and Lyft. It cited an “overwhelming majority of drivers asking for more flexibility” in making the change and said drivers would have “more control over where and when they drive, the ability to take breaks when and for how long they want, and for more lucrative bonuses that are easier to achieve.”
The ride-hailing companies have threatened in the past to withdraw from jurisdictions that have tried to implement wage reforms and other policy changes. This presents a practical barrier for governments aiming to regulate the industry. In March, Uber and Lyft threatened to stop serving Minneapolis after city officials attempted to raise driver pay. Both companies temporarily pulled out of Austin when the city tried to introduce driver fingerprinting rules in 2016.
The Common Ground
Recent settlements envision a brand of compromise the rideshare industry calls “Independent Contractor Plus.” These deals, which Uber and Lyft often champion as evidence of good faith, maintain drivers’ independent contractor status but promise additional benefits such as health coverage and paid leave.
Lyft said in a statement that it sees a public shift away from debating whether drivers should be employees and moving toward “figuring out the best way to design protections and benefits that make sense in the context of rideshare.” This includes making sure drivers maintain flexibility. “What’s clear is that gig work is here to stay,” Lyft says.
In addition to the Massachusetts settlement, which provides some of the most expansive benefits to date, Minnesota recently brokered a deal with Uber and Lyft to pay drivers $1.28 per mile and 31¢ per minute transporting passengers. The agreement, which almost fell apart earlier this year, also guaranteed better workers’ compensation insurance and boosted protections against unfair “deactivation”—the ride-hailing equivalent of a layoff.
Although such compromises have broadly improved benefits and pay rates for drivers, they haven’t guaranteed a true minimum wage. For example, even if a Massachusetts or Minnesota driver is on the road 10 hours a day, they’re paid only for the subset of those hours they spend driving passengers or on the way to a pickup.
New York City takes a different approach. Instead of setting a flat rate for hours spent driving passengers—as is the rule for the rest of New York state—it compensates drivers using a complex formula accounting for both active driving hours and time between rides. Bhairavi Desai, president of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance (NYTWA), which represents 28,000 professional drivers in the city, and city taxi commissioner David Do said in interviews that New York’s was the best arrangement in the country—at least until Uber and Lyft started to fight it.
To skirt the idling rule, the ride-hailing companies recently began locking workers out of the app during periods of low demand, reducing drivers’ take-home pay by as much as 50%. The NYTWA is now urging the city to take legal action and end the practice.
“We had something that worked,” Desai says. “We were closer to equilibrium than we had been in a long time.”