Uber has pledged to improve its vetting procedures after admitting that a man arrested in Dallas on suspicion of sexually assaulting a passenger was granted approval to drive for the company by mistake.
Talal Ali Chammout was arrested on 29 July, accused of attacking a woman inside her home. Court documents show the 56-year-old was convicted of assault in California in 1995 and sentenced to 78 months in federal prison in 2007 for weapons offences.
“Our internal investigation has shown that while we have strict policies and procedures, these were not properly followed,” Uber’s Dallas general manager, Leandre Johns, wrote in a letter to a Dallas city compliance official.
Johns said that it appeared Chammout applied to drive for UberBlack, the rideshare company’s limousine service, using a fake permit that meant he avoided undergoing background checks by the company or the city.
He originally signed up for Uber in January 2014 not as a driver but a “partner” trying to generate business for his family’s limousine company. Even though his Uber account was marked “will not be driving”, in April this year an Uber employee gave him permission to do so.
Johns said in the letter that Uber has conducted a manual review of every limousine permit provided as identification by its Dallas drivers or owners and confirmed that all of them have gone through the company’s background check process.
He said that the company would implement an extra layer of scrutiny for new drivers in Dallas and increase spot-checks of identification documents. “We are determined to learn from the mistakes that were made so we can do better in the future,” the letter said. Uber has more than 10,000 drivers in Dallas, a spokesperson said.
Uber operates in about 300 cities worldwide, more than half of them in the US, and background check requirements vary depending on its agreements with local authorities.
The technology-centered transport company’s expansion into Texas’s major cities has not been easy amid sometimes fraught negotiations with officials about regulation and opposition from traditional taxi operators.
In April the company suspended operations in San Antonio amid a political row over whether drivers should be subject to background checks including fingerprinting. It is planning to hold meetings with officials this week with a view to a swift return.
The company also hit trouble in Houston after it emerged that a driver accused of raping an unconscious passenger did not have a city permit. A long-established private transport trade body, the Taxicab, Limousine and Paratransit Association, has sought to highlight alleged criminal behaviour by drivers for Uber and Lyft as part of its rivalry with the start-ups.
Uber is expanding and looking to raise cash but losing money, according to a report by Bloomberg News.
