An Uber driver who went on a pilgrimage to Tirupathi, and returned with a tonsured head, and shaved beard, per religious customs, claimed that he was locked out of the system as a selfie he uploaded, a part of the logging-in process, failed to identify him and was rejected by the company’s facial recognition system. The company has denied the claim.
Speaking to The Hindu, 22-year-old driver Srikanth, a resident of Lingampally, said that he returned from Tirupathi and attempted to log-in on February 27 by uploading a selfie in the Uber partner app. While log-ins are approved within a few seconds, the wait this time was longer, and the log-in request was rejected, he claimed.
“After the log-in was rejected, I went to the Uber’s Driver Centre in Kondapur the next day and informed them of the problem. The next day, I tried to log-in again, but this time all my requests were blocked. This has never happened before. It has been more than a month and I am unable to work,” Mr. Srikanth said.
The issue came to light after Shaik Mohammed Salauddin, who heads the Telangana Gig and Platform Worker’s Union, tweeted Mr. Srikanth’s issue, pointing out that the latter had completed 1,428 trips, and holds a 4.67 star rating. “I have come across such issues before, and there needs to be clarity on the issue. “There are many stories like Srikanth where due to Uber and Ola software decisions, drivers’ IDs get blocked. Customer complaints lead to immediate drivers’ ID blocks. If there is a conflict of any other app with Uber app on phone the IDs gets blocked (issue of false location),” he said.
The issue created a flutter on social media, and organisations like Internet Freedom Foundation voiced their support for Mr. Srikanth, and tweeted: “We voice our support for Srikanth. Gig workers provide a wide range of services and make lives easier for lakhs of Indians. They are increasingly at the mercy of AI based tools that may result in harms. We need institutional safeguards and remedies. CC: @Uber_India”.
For their part, Uber told The Hindu that it has a well-functioning facial recognition system, and that Mr. Srikanth had violated the company’s community guidelines. In an official statement sent via email, an Uber spokesperson said: “The driver in question had visited an Uber Partner Seva Kendra when he was unable to log in and it was communicated to him that his access to the app had been removed due to repeated violations of our community guidelines, which set the highest possible safety standards on our platform. Uber’s facial recognition tool is capable of detecting natural changes in a person’s appearance such as long or cropped hair. In case drivers face a problem logging in due to any technical issue with the selfie verification process, they have the option to visit the nearest Uber Partner Seva Kendra for a manual review of their profile.”