Uber Boston driver adds to firm’s woes with rape charge

BOSTON — A Boston man who worked as an Uber Technologies driver was charged with taking a woman to a secluded area and raping her, as questions about the company’s driver-screening process prompted it to begin an assessment of its safety programmes.

Alejandro Done, 46, pulled up at about 7.30pm on Dec 6 outside a Boston residence, where a young woman was waiting for a prearranged ride-sharing driver, said a statement by Middlesex County district attorney Marian Ryan and Cambridge police commissioner Robert Haas.

The police said they had identified the defendant as the driver of the car through company records. It was not known whether the defendant had used information he had gained through his position as an Uber driver to target the victim, according to the statement made on Wednesday.

Uber has faced criticism over the safety of its rides. This month, one of its drivers was accused of raping a woman in New Delhi. An Uber driver was also charged in San Francisco this month with killing a six-year-old girl crossing a city street last New Year’s Eve.

The San Francisco-based company said its review, which started last month, would determine where greater investment in safety is needed, including possible improvements in technology, background checks and incident-response teams to offer support.

Uber is the most highly valued American technology start-up. It raised US$1.2 billion (S$1.57 billion) earlier this month at a valuation of US$40 billion. On Wednesday, Chinese Web company Baidu said it had invested in the mobile car-booking firm led by CEO Travis Kalanick.

Uber has cooperated and assisted in the Boston investigation, said the police and prosecutors in the statement. Done was arraigned in the Cambridge District Court and is scheduled to appear in court on Dec 24, said the statement.

Uber earlier promised to focus on rider safety amid increasing concern that its drivers have not been adequately screened for past criminal convictions.

In a blog post on Wednesday, Uber’s head of global safety defended the company’s safety record, but also wrote: “As we look to 2015, we will build new safety programmes and intensify others”.

The taxi alternative lets passengers summon cars through an app in more than 250 cities around the world. It faces multiple legal and regulatory challenges as it expands in the United States and abroad.

Last week, prosecutors in California, where Uber is based, filed a lawsuit alleging that the firm had exaggerated about how comprehensive its driver background checks were. The company does not, for example, require drivers to be fingerprinted, unlike those of regulated taxis in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

In the post, Uber’s recently hired head of global safety offered few details of coming changes. The initiatives will include the creation of teams that can rapidly respond to safety-related reports and new ways to screen would-be drivers.

“We are finding solutions in many areas ranging from polygraph exams that fill gaps in available data to adding our own processes in addition to existing screening for commercial licences,” wrote company security chief Philip Cardenas.

“We are exploring new ways to screen drivers globally, using scientific analysis and technology to find solutions.”

Calling Uber’s proposals “a decoy to quell the intense criticism the company is generating worldwide”, a spokesman for the Taxicab, Limousine & Paratransit Association challenged the firm to “follow the rule of law tomorrow and truly begin moving towards safe operations”. Agencies