>>The only way I’ve found to contact a human when a ride goes awry is to basically say an accident happened. That connects you with humans who can actually, sometimes, address your problem in a way the chatbot never can.

>The best way to reduce your incident count is by not collecting incident data.

The guy you're replying to is actually claiming the opposite, ie. that rude drivers complaints are getting upgraded to "accident" or "driver was threatening" complaints to get past the chatbot, and Uber is actually safer than their statistics claim.

> From the article: “Uber has said it is one of the safest ways to get around, with the vast majority of its trips in the United States — 99.9 percent — occurring without an incident of any kind”

Another way of phrasing this is that if you take Uber to and from work, you'll likely have an incident within 2 years.

> Is it normal to be fingerprinted for a job?

Depends on context. In finance or anything concerning children, yes. You’re given autonomy where others are vulnerable. On a construction site, on a factory floor, or in an office, where you’re constantly supervised, no.

> Uber drivers in particular seem a vulnerable group

So are their passengers.

In roles where you're trusted with a lot of power over other people, absolutely. You won't get fingerprinted in a restaurant or store, but everyone in a hospital or a school should be.

> Uber drivers in particular seem a vulnerable group, which makes forcing this a bit 'icky'.

You seem to be redefining the word “vulnerable” to mean the opposite. Uber drivers disproportionately are men without full time jobs. That pool of people almost certainly has a higher likelihood of criminal behavior than the population as a whole. Assuming finger printing actually works (which I’m not sure), they’re exactly the people who should have more scrutiny.

In many countries, taxi licensing requires an ID/criminal background check, to ensure people with rape convictions don’t end up alone with drunk vulnerable people.

It may not require fingerprinting, but it’s certainly stricter than many jobs.

Being fingerprinted is required to obtain a law license.

Uber drivers have to verify their driver's license, so it should be pretty easy to keep track of abuse.

vulnerable how?

Driving for Uber isn't a job, it is a gig, which is different, and why Uber doesn't have to give benefits or pay like it is a job. Uber spent TONS of money lobbying and electioneering for this position.

there's no way to ensure the person who registered for the account is the person actually driving

The drivers all have smart-phones - shouldn't it be possible to use the face-id feature to verify the driver is the driver-of-record on the account?

> What's the point of fingerprinting when there's no way to ensure the person who registered for the account is the person actually driving?

There are plenty of ways to do that verification, or at least make it more difficult. Prints then finger who fucked up.

The person allowing his fingerprints to be used will have a lot of difficult questions to answer when being interviewed by law enforcement.

Running a business where your employees are isolated with customers in often remote areas is not a standard business. Additional safety for both parties is certainly warranted.

Financial services, especially folks who touch capital markets, does fingerprints and drug testing, but agree a standard background check should be fit for purpose for this use case assuming an exception process with a human queue processor.