Uber’s First Transparency Report
Laying the foundation for a Transparency Reporting Program
The Road to More Transparent Platforms
In 2024 Transparency Reports are an increasingly common practice in the tech industry with new regulations like the Digital Services Act in the European Union, the Online Safety Bill in the UK, and AB 587 in California mandating some form of public disclosure of safety efforts. Google pioneered the first Transparency Report in 2010, but it has not been a universal practice for tech companies to disclose their content moderation or user account suspensions until more recently. And yet, the media, regulators, and the public rightly have demanded to know more about the policies and procedures that govern some of the largest and most successful platforms.
How Much Harm?
In 2016, Uber was fighting against public perception that it was unsafe. While the company had become a global leader in on-demand transportation, it had a reputation for prioritizing growth and neglecting safety. Top of mind for most users and the public were concerns about physical safety. After years of being told to never get into a strangers car, here we were living in world where it was becoming common practice. Even as the company began to turn its image around with its Driving Change initiative, a challenging question remained: How many safety incidents happened on Uber?
Particularly top of mind were the number of sexual assaults that occurred on the platform. Just one of these incidents was one too many and yet Uber operated on a massive scale. Around that time, Uber conducted nearly 3M trips a day so a one-in-a-million occurrence happened 3 times a day on Uber. Sadly we know that these issues are more prevalent in society than one in a million.
To further complicate matters, there was not a unified definition for criminal sexual assault across the 50 states let alone internationally. To report on such a sensitive topic, Uber need to be confident in clear definitions of bad behavior and in the integrity of their data.
What You Can Measure, You Can Influence
Classifying and measuring sexual harm required expert input. JP and his team partnered closely with experts at the National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC) and the Urban Institute to review past user reports and construct a framework for classifying bad behaviors. Uber already had a strong categorization system or taxonomy for most safety incidents, but recognized that it needed expert-informed guidance to create a taxonomy of sexual misconduct.
This began with identifying all the user behaviors that were unwanted on the platform, both by users and Uber itself. This was critical because many unwanted behaviors such as leering and harassment, while not illegal, have no place on the platform. By creating behavior-based definitions for the full spectrum of sexual misconduct, we were able to create a system to consistently categorize user reports.
Once the taxonomy was created, it was tested by having 3 reviewers read a sample of user reports and independently categorize them. We then measured the agreement between the reviewers to determine whether the definitions and categories were clear enough for different reviewers to come to the same conclusions. This way, we ensured that the taxonomy was usable by the moderation team and resulted in consistent application of user policy.
While this may sound basic, it is the foundation of an effective Trust and Safety strategy and clear Transparency Reporting. Accurately measuring harm is the first step in addressing it. For example, a report of flirting while not allowed, would likely result in a warning. A report of nonconsensual intimate touching however, a ban would be appropriate. Testing the taxonomy with experts helped ensure that each report resulted in the proper outcome and that each data point released in a Transparency Report would be accurate.
An Industry-first Transparency Report
The taxonomy that we developed with the NSVRC and Urban Institute allowed Uber to confidently publish its first Transparency Report and the first report of its kind for the ridesharing industry. By leveraging a clear and expert-informed categorization system, Uber was able to answer the question, “How safe is Uber really?” with hard data. While bad things do happen on the platform and any safety incident is something to strive hard to prevent, Uber was able to share that 99.9% of all Uber trips ended without a single safety-related issue.
We didn’t stop there though. Uber recognized that greater transparency of safety incidents and solutions was good for the rideshare and tech industries as a whole. To accomplish this, Uber shared made the taxonomy it developed with NSVRC and the Urban Institute open-source and available for the entire industry. Any company was welcome to adopt and adapt the taxonomy for its unique needs, using it as a framework. By sharing these figures openly it raises the bar for all companies in the industry and improves safety for all users.
In fact, this taxonomy was recognized by Mashable as one of 14 innovations that helped make the world a better place in 2018 and the taxonomy was shared with companies across the travel, transportation, and technology industries. Lyft followed Uber’s example and released a Transparency Report using the same taxonomy and both companies began to report out on their existing safety features and commit to new safety initiatives in the coming year as part of their reporting process. Transparency Reports alone don’t make tech platforms safer, but they do give companies and the public clear understandings of the most pressing issues and provide accountability for the platforms to address them.
Need to publish your own Transparency Report?
JP has helped helped companies like Uber, Tinder, and Hinge prepare for their first Transparency Reports. Whether setting up your first report or improving an existing one, learn how JP can help.