by Stephanie Gosk, Conor Ferguson and Scott Stump, NBC News, April 18, 2019
Tony West, Uber’s chief legal and security officer, told NBC News in an exclusive interview that the company’s app will push out an alert for riders to check the license plate, make and model of the vehicle — as well as the name and picture of the driver — to confirm it’s the correct person picking them up. He said the Uber app will also prominently display new safety notifications.
Uber’s response to Josephson’s death has been to create a new alert system that will begin rolling out in South Carolina on Thursday, and then across the rest of its user base in the coming days.
“In the app, when you’ve ordered your Uber, when it’s on the way, you will get more persistent, more frequent notifications, push notifications, to your phone that remind you to check your ride,” West said.
Although, personally, I find that only adding a new banner system that increases the number of alerts and reminders that you receive about being safe, is a band-aid to temporarily patch up a problem, I think that it shows that Uber as a company is making an effort to ensure the safety of it’s users. Uber does run background checks on all of their new drivers to make sure that they are reliable enough to drive for Uber, safety concerns are always an issue when dealing with people who you are unfamiliar with. I hope to see Uber and similar companies continue to make safety improvements to eliminate violent crimes in association to ride sharing services.
