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Uber settles background check suit

LOS ANGELES (AP) – Ride-hailing company Uber will pay at least $10 million to settle allegations by California prosecutors that the ride-hailing company misled passengers about the quality of its driver background checks.

The settlement was signed Thursday in San Francisco, where Uber is based and where the district attorney led a lawsuit that said Uber falsely claimed its criminal screening of would-be drivers was the most comprehensive available.

San Francisco and Los Angeles prosecutors sued in 2014, saying Uber’s background checks were inferior to what taxi drivers undergo because they did not include fingerprint checks for past convictions. Instead, Uber’s process relies on a name search of other criminal databases and motor vehicle department files going back seven years.

Uber has defended the safety of its service despite a steady stream of allegations that its drivers have assaulted passengers, or, in the case of a driver in Michigan earlier this year, killed people. The app lets passengers share their location in real time, Uber points out, and the person who booked the ride is required to rate the driver after each trip, helping weed out unsavory characters.

In settling the California case, Uber did not admit wrongdoing and said it already has made many changes prosecutors sought.

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