San Jose leaders propose mandating Uber and Lyft to report sex assault claims to police

SAN JOSE — Mayor Sam Liccardo and Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen are backing a proposed ordinance that would force Uber and Lyft to notify authorities when sexual assault claims are made against their drivers, setting the stage for another battle in the political and legal fight over whether the rideshare titans are doing enough to protect their users.

Under the ordinance, Uber, Lyft and taxi companies operating in San Jose would have to alert police any time a rider makes a sexual assault or misconduct report involving their drivers and vehicles. Police would then contact the reported victim to evaluate their account, propose an investigation, and refer the person to support and medical services.

The rideshare companies remained firm on their current policies and practices to defer to survivors’ judgment on contacting law enforcement, which they say are informed by the guidance of sexual assault support advocates.

But Liccardo and Rosen, speaking at a City Hall news conference Thursday backed by the San Jose Police Department and the county’s top sexual-assault prosecutor in Assistant DA Terry Harman, argued that internal investigations by the companies may be guided by business concerns and bottom lines. Liccardo also argued that riders are getting the impression that reporting to the companies is tantamount to alerting police, and noted that rideshare providers are already helping each other identify problem drivers.

“We know they are sharing that information with each other, we want them to share that information with the one agency that can do something about it,” Liccardo said. “There is certainly ample reason to wonder whether or not they’re also interested in protecting their own pocketbooks, particularly with regard to liability, particularly with regard to public perception … What’s not protected is the community.”

Both rideshare companies have put out “Safety Reports.” Uber in 2019 saying it had received more than 6,000 reports of sexual assaults involving its services in 2017 and 2018, with drivers making up 56% of those accused. Uber’s second report said it received about 4,000 sexual assault reports in 2019 and 2020. Lyft in October reported that it received more than 4,000 sexual assault reports from 2017 through 2019. The reported incidents ranged from groping to rape.

“For how many were we contacted? The answer was zero,” Rosen said of instances in Santa Clara County. “We’re talking about potentially hundreds of sexual cases not being brought to the attention of law enforcement.”

The district attorney also argued that by keeping law enforcement out of the loop, police and prosecutors can’t identify potential repeat offenders, and that assault survivors might not be made aware of all the resources available to them.

“Not every person who contacts law enforcement about being sexually assaulted wants there to be a prosecution,” Rosen said. “We also provide all of the services … regardless of whether the victim cooperates.”

The rideshare companies responded to the ideas behind the proposed ordinance, which first surfaced in a New York Times article in October, with a unified front.

“We believe the decision about whether and how to report incidents of sexual assault is a deeply personal one that belongs solely in the hands of the individual who experienced it,” a Lyft spokesperson wrote in a statement to this news organization. “We oppose any policy that would remove this agency from the survivor.”

Emilie Boman, director of global safety policy for Uber, echoed the sentiment, saying in a statement that they are relying on survivor advocate expertise that “assuming someone wants the police involved, or pressuring them to do so, risks re-traumatizing them.”

“To insinuate that Uber somehow misleads survivors or benefits financially or reputationally or from our approach is categorically false. We have talked openly about these issues and led the industry to disclose detailed data not because it was easy, but because it was the right thing to do,” Boman said.

Uber and Lyft have each been sued by more than 1,000 women alleging sexual assault by drivers, with the majority of cases filed in San Francisco Superior Court.

Lawyer Rachel Abrams, whose firm has filed more than 700 of those lawsuits, worked with Santa Clara County on mandatory reporting of rideshare sexual assaults. She said Thursday that she believes Uber and Lyft are underreporting the number of such incidents, and that the proposed San Jose ordinance would help ensure the public and police are aware of the extent of sexual attacks by Uber and Lyft drivers.

Many women report sexual assaults to the companies and not to police because they believe the firms will remove the drivers, Abrams said.

“Unfortunately, we know that in many cases the drivers are not removed after these reports,” Abrams said.

Abrams acknowledged that women have many reasons for not reporting sexual assaults to law enforcement, but she said she believes that if well-trained police handle contacts with survivors, and protocols limit the amount of personal information the companies disclose to investigators, additional harm can be avoided.

Sandra Henriquez, CEO of Sacramento-based non-profit ValorUS, which combats sexual violence, said her organization has spoken with Liccardo and Rosen and voiced its opposition to the ordinance.

“It really takes the choice away from the survivors,” Henriquez said Thursday. “It’s not up to us or anyone to decide that we’re going to re-open this wound up for them, just call out of the blue and say, ‘Hey, we heard this happened and now you have the right to report.’ In terms of survivors regaining agency and reclaiming the power and control that’s been taken from them in this situation, they need to be in the driver’s seat about every decision that’s made every step of the way.”