DA: major flaws in Uber background checks allow criminal drivers

SF DA George Gascon called a press conference Wednesday to say that Uber's background check process is so flawed that it has least 22 convicted criminals driving in Los Angeles and San Francisco. SF DA George Gascon called a press conference Wednesday to say that Uber's background check process is so flawed that it has least 22 convicted criminals driving in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Photo: Carolyn Said, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Carolyn Said, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close DA: major flaws in Uber background checks allow criminal drivers 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

Uber drivers in Los Angeles and San Francisco include convicted sex offenders, identity thieves, burglars, kidnappers and a murderer, according to San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón.

“We learned of systemic failures in Uber’s background checks,” Gascón said at a hastily called news conference Wednesday about the consumer-protection lawsuit that he and Los Angeles District Attorney Jackie Lacey filed against Uber in December. “A lot of the information that Uber has presented to consumers has been false and misleading.”

While Uber agrees that safety is a priority, no system is perfect for scouring backgrounds, a company statement said in response. People who applied to drive for Uber in San Francisco, L.A. and San Diego included 475 livery drivers and 600 taxi drivers whom Uber rejected because they had been convicted of crimes, said spokeswoman Nairi Hourdajian. An Uber blog said 113 of the taxi applicants and 130 of the limo drivers had convictions for DUI, rape, assault, child abuse, attempted murder or other violence. Uber said it provided the applicants’ names under seal to an unspecified regulator.

Uber’s rapid rise

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San Francisco’s Uber has rapidly become a global phenomenon since it launched five years ago. It now offers rides in more than 300 cities worldwide, amassing $6.9 billion in backing and racking up a valuation of $50 billion — towering above any other private startup. At the same time, it’s become a lightning rod for controversy, butting heads with regulators, city halls and the established taxi industry.

Gascón’s office released a 62-page amended complaint that cited 25 instances of California Uber drivers with criminal records that he said were found during the discovery process.

Much of the original case hinges on Uber’s statement that its background check process is “industry leading” — a claim that Uber no longer makes. Still, the complaint said, Uber continues to make some misleading claims on its website, in communications to customers and in the media. “Uber’s false and misleading statements are so woven into the fabric of Uber’s safety narrative that they render Uber’s entire safety message misleading,” it said.

Uber’s name-based background checks, like those of rival Lyft, go back only seven years. Gascón hammered home the point that the fingerprint-based Live Scan screening used for taxi and limo drivers looks back further and can thwart those who assume a fake identity just to pass the check.

“We disagree that the Live Scan process used by taxi companies is an inherently better system for screening drivers than our background checks,” Uber said in a statement. “The reality is that neither is 100 percent foolproof.”

Gascón and the suit said one loophole is this: About one quarter of California registered sex offenders, some 30,000 people, were able to petition to have their names withheld from the Megan’s Law website, a database of sex offenders. Any of those 30,000 people whose convictions occurred more than seven years ago will never be flagged by Uber’s background checks, the lawsuit said.

25 criminal drivers

The 25 Uber drivers with criminal backgrounds were uncovered when they happened to receive citations by airport police at San Francisco and Los Angeles international airports or by the L.A. police Bandit Cab detail, the lawsuit said, noting that this was just a small sample.

Some of those criminal drivers had legal issues, such as parole violations, that occurred more recently than seven years before their Uber background checks, the suit said.

The 25 drivers were not named in the lawsuit. Uber said it de-activated the “vast majority” of those drivers after the DAs informed it of their history and is waiting for the prosecutors to provide the names of the remainder.

Lyft settled similar allegations before charges were brought and agreed to pay $250,000 in civil fines. It did not change its background check process.

Uber and Lyft are regulated by the California Public Utilities Commission, which requires driver background checks without specifying the method or time look-back period.

California legislators this year and last year proposed new laws that would have required fingerprint background checks for Uber and Lyft drivers. The companies ferociously lobbied against the laws, which failed to pass.

The lawsuit pointed to this. “At the same time Uber was stating that it is ‘working diligently to ensure we’re doing everything we can to make Uber the safest experience on the road,’ it was instead working diligently to ensure it was doing everything it could to successfully defeat a bill pending in the California legislature that would have actually made Uber safer for its customers and the public,” it said.

Carolyn Said is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: csaid@sfchronicle.com

Twitter: @csaid