Unionised Uber drivers are taking legal action against the ride-hailing app provider over allegations of using “racially discriminatory” facial verification technology, which they claim has led to dozens of unfair dismissals.
Uber’s Real-Time ID Check system uses Face API, face-matching software developed by Microsoft that can be used for either facial verification or recognition, and essentially acts as a comparison tool, checking selfies taken by couriers and drivers as they log in against photographs in Uber’s database to confirm their identities.
The legal action is being brought by two separate unions – the App Drivers and Couriers Union (ADCU) and the International Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB) – which claim that Uber’s use of the technology has led to the wrongful suspension of their members following misidentification by the system.
In July 2021, Computer Weekly reported that the transport regulator was facing numerous legal appeals from Uber drivers as a result of its decisions to revoke their private licences on the basis of mistaken information from Uber’s systems.
In the ADCU case, which is being supported by its associated data trust Worker Info Exchange and the Equality & Human Rights Commission (EHRC), the union has filed a claim at the Central London Employment Tribunal on behalf of former UberEats courier Pa Edrissa Manjang and former Uber driver Imran Javaid Raja.
The IWGB has also filed a separate claim for indirect racial discrimination on behalf of an unnamed member, whose account it claims was terminated following a facial recognition error. It further claimed that it has represented more than 200 drivers and couriers who have been unfairly terminated by Uber in the past year alone on a range of grounds, including facial recognition failures.
The potentially discriminatory nature of Uber’s facial verification system was first highlighted as an issue affecting workers in March 2021 when, as part of an investigation for Wired, 14 Uber Eats couriers shared evidence with independent journalist Andrew Kersley that showed how the technology failed to recognise their faces, leading to threats of termination and account closure.
Alongside legal action, the IWGB organised a 24-hour boycott of Uber on 6 October 2021 and an accompanying protest outside the company’s London headquarters on the same day, which was supported by Black Lives Matter UK (BLM UK).
