San Francisco (AFP)
Uber revealed that nearly 6,000 sexual assaults were reported by users or drivers of his service, as well as third parties, in the United States in 2017 and 2018, in a security report released Thursday.
The VTC group recorded 235 rapes last year (or "non-consensual sexual penetration").
The other assaults are divided into different categories of touching or attempts to touch or penetrate sexual or non-sexual areas - Uber counts 3,000 "non-consensual touching of a sexual part of the body" over two years.
"These incidents were reported on 0.00002% of the races, and although rare, each of these reports represents an individual who shared a very painful experience - even a single report would be a report of too much," says the global giant of the VTC .
This is the first time that Uber has released this report, as the company and its main American rival, Lyft, are under increasing pressure to cope with the growing number of complaints from abused users.
On Wednesday, 20 women filed lawsuits in San Francisco against Lyft for sexual assault or rape that occurred in chauffeur-driven vehicles affiliated with the California company. They are in addition to 14 similar complaints filed in September.
The precise figures of the number of lawsuits filed are not known, but the lawsuits led the two companies to put in place various measures to better ensure the safety of the passengers.
In particular, Uber and Lyft made it more difficult for drivers to impersonate, tightened controls to detect criminals, and added a button to report a problem while driving.
Features that victims' lawyers see as essentially ineffective.
They advocate routine registration of races to make drivers feel monitored, better cooperation with authorities in case of incidents and better checks of drivers' past.
Uber's report also reveals that 107 people lost their lives due to accidents in 2017 and 2018, during trips ordered on its application.
In addition, 19 people were killed in assaults related to Uber trips over two years: 8 passengers, 7 drivers and 4 outside people.
© 2019 AFP