Uber has 30 days to require certain drivers to be fingerprinted if the transportation giant intends to continue transporting unaccompanied teens in California.
The California Public Utilities Commission issued a ruling Thursday requiring drivers of taxicabs and transportation companies that transport unaccompanied minors in the state to pass a fingerprint background check. The ruling also requires trucking companies to pay the cost of those background checks.
Uber has a history of fighting fingerprint-based driver background check requirements. seven years ago, Uber and Lyft blocked a similar effort in California to fingerprint drivers. The company has argued that its current name-based background checks and other safeguards are sufficient, and that such an inconvenient measure would deter drivers from signing up for the platform and disproportionately affect minorities.
All of that goes out the window when it comes to safely transporting children and ensuring they don’t get in the car with a potential sex offender.
“When an adult is assigned the task of providing a service to a minor, the adult is placed in a position of trust, responsibility, and control over California’s most vulnerable citizens: children,” the decision reads. “Failure to conduct a fingerprint-based background check to identify adults with disqualifying arrests or criminal records would place the unaccompanied minor in a potentially dangerous, if not life-threatening, situation.”
Uber launched Uber for Teens, its service that allows teens ages 13 to 17 to take an Uber without a parent or guardian, in February 2024. The CPUC sent a warning letter to Uber strongly recommending that Uber stop the service until In 2016 the background information will be regulated. The controls could be resolved. In March, Uber asked for clarity on the rule, specifically the part that stated that any company involved “primarily” in transporting minors would have to enforce strict background checks. The company said this summer that less than 10% of the company’s total trips involve unaccompanied minors.
At the center of the debate has been whether Uber should be required to participate in the Justice Department’s Trustline program. Trustline is a registry maintained by the California Department of Social Services that uses fingerprints to screen caregivers for arrests and criminal convictions. It also compares applicants to the Central Child Abuse Index, which contains reports of suspected child abuse and neglect.
Uber has said that its own name-based screening system through Checkr, as well as safety features like the live ride tracking included in Uber for Teens, are adequate to keep riders of any age safe. Uber also says it only matches the most experienced and highly qualified drivers with teenagers.
Uber has also been accused of not taking enough steps to protect passengers from dangerous situations, including child trafficking. In July, two South Carolina families sued Uber alleging that the company allowed its teenage daughters to be taken across state lines to a predator’s home where one of the girls was sexually assaulted.
The CPUC ruling is bad news for Uber, which launched Uber for teens in California in February 2024, but good news for HopSkipDrive, a startup that offers a ride-sharing service for kids and advocated for this ruling.
HopSkipDrive refers to its drivers as “CareDrivers” and says they all have caregiving experience and go through a 15-point certification before being onboarded, including a fingerprint-based background check. The startup also uses telematics to detect unsafe driving behavior and enable real-time trip tracking, and has a dedicated team that monitors each trip.
The CPUC ruling also requires transportation companies that intend to transport minors to share information with the agency about how they implement live ride tracking for parents, what safety procedures they implement at pick-up and drop-off locations, and what type driver training programs are specifically implemented by companies. on the transportation of unaccompanied minors.
The ruling also says that each company is responsible for paying the checks.
Uber has also objected to this stipulation, saying that forcing the company (which has a market capitalization of around $150 billion as of December) to pay for fingerprinting would result in a price increase for the Uber service for teenagers. Uber, like many large companies, has a history of offloading the costs associated with rulings and legislation onto the customer. For example, California users can expect to see the following message at the bottom of their Uber receipts: “In California, on average, approximately 33% of the customer price went to cover government-mandated business insurance for “rideshares in July 2024, one of the highest rates in the country.”
HopSkipDrive pays the cost of fingerprint checks for its drivers. The Commission wrote in its ruling that “if small [transportation network companies] Just as HopSkipDrive can cover the cost of a TrustLine background check, so should Uber.”
Uber did not respond to britcommerce’s request for comment in time.