Giving Compass' Take:

• Uber's ride-sharing platform collaborated with RALIANCE, the National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC), and Urban Institute to build a research-informed classification system for reporting and collecting sexual assault data. Here are three lessons that other businesses can gain from this research. 

• How can other companies replicate these processes? How will this help to make ride-share companies more accountable? 

• Read about the new features Uber is rolling out to increase rider safety.

Uber’s ride-sharing platform has massive reach across the US and the world, connecting more than 1 billion rides in 2017 and even more in 2018. At the same time, sexual harassment, sexual misconduct, and sexual assault are ubiquitous social problems in the United States (PDF).

Yesterday, Uber released their first US Safety Report, which includes a focus on sexual assault occurring on their platform. In 2018, Uber’s leadership engaged with RALIANCE, the National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC), and the Urban Institute to develop a research-informed categorization system to classify users’ reports of incidents of sexual harassment, sexual misconduct, and sexual assault to better inform them of the nature and scope of these experiences on their platform and how to address them.

This year, the Urban-NSVRC-RALIANCE team was again engaged to assess Uber’s integration of the sexual misconduct and violence taxonomy into its system of receiving and accurately categorizing complaints from platform users and to assess Uber’s approach to developing the US Safety Report.

Three important takeaways from the Uber US Safety Report for other businesses to consider:

  1. The rates of the most serious types of sexual assault reported to Uber are low.
  2. Both riders and drivers experience sexual misconduct and assault.
  3. Reports of sexual assault on Uber’s platform may increase as the public learns that Uber is taking these incidents seriously.

Uber’s publication of their first US Safety Report is one example of how a business can begin to identify and address sexual assault for users. Businesses across the transportation and hospitality industries can learn from this effort as they consider how to proactively address these unwanted experiences.

Read the full article about Uber sexual assault by Janine M. Zweig and Emily Tiry at Urban Institute.