
Uber executive, who obtained medical records of customer rape victim, is fired - coloneltcb
https://www.recode.net/2017/6/7/15754316/uber-executive-india-assault-rape-medical-records
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kevinburke
To summarize: An Uber rider in India alleged she was raped by an Uber driver.
The driver was already awaiting trial for four other criminal offenses, and
was ultimately convicted of the crime. An Uber executive (Eric Alexander) flew
to India and (legally or illegally) obtained her medical records, then showed
these to multiple executives at the company.

These records were then used by Alexander, Travis Kalanick, and Emil Michael
to dispute (internally) the woman's account of the story. They claimed that a
local competitor was trying to sabotage them by planting this story, which
again, involves an Uber customer being raped by a driver facing multiple
(other) criminal accusations. Needless to say they lack the training necessary
to decipher a medical record, a rape may or may not have left evidence present
in that record, and it's a gross violation of customer privacy, business
ethics, and (probably) the law.

This is repulsive conduct and it's unbelievable any of these people are still
attached to the company.

~~~
propman
Not even allegedly, she was raped and apparently Uber's background checks were
trash and didn't follow proper city laws so they got banned in New Delhi. The
guy admitted the rape and claimed he'd raped others, he's serving life in
prison and he threatened rape victim with murder and raping her with an iron
rod. She was a 26 y/o financial executive and sued Uber and settled out of
court. Yeah if you're getting strangers to drive women alone at night, I'd
hope you'd follow proper background checks.

Just read some other links in article and they were also sued for having at
least 25 riders be former sex offenders, sexual assault, and murderers just in
Cali wtf. I seriously want to see how many sexual assaults have occurred in
uber vs taxis. I see one every day from Uber just in Cali. If taxis did that
they would lose their 250k-million dollar medallion so that's an incentive I
guess to an archaic regulation. I know others disagree with me, but I would
not hire any felons to be drivers. You're giving them complete power over any
passenger with no witnesses. I'm completely okay with felons working anywhere
with people, but I wouldn't hire one to babysit my kid. That's the similar
level of power they have in a car at night and honestly most rape assaults
I've seen, the perpetrators had priors

~~~
kakarot
Please do not confuse "felons" with violent and sexual offenders.

Obviously you do not want to employ people with those kinds of backgrounds in
a setting where they could repeat past behaviour, but there is an overwhelming
number of felons without violent or sexual records and by denying them
employment, you are participating in a system designed to coerce poor,
uneducated and misguided individuals into repetitive criminal behavior.

If you already understand this distinction between non-violent and violent
federal offenders, please consider reflecting it with your choice of words as
to not cause further harm to others caught in this system.

~~~
dragonwriter
It's ironic that in a post about conflation between violent and non-violent
offenders of some class, you seem to have conflated the orthogonal classes of
“felons” and “federal offenders”.

~~~
kakarot
I was not aware of any difference in the terms nor could I find anything on
the matter after a quick search. Mind explaining the difference to me?

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kafkaesq
_The executive in question, Eric Alexander, the president of business in the
Asia Pacific, then showed the medical records to Uber CEO Travis Kalanick and
SVP Emil Michael._

At least the article makes it clear who needs to be fired next -- for both not
immediately firing Alexander for gross misconduct, and (just as egregiously)
not adamantly refusing to even consider looking at a rape victim's private
medicate records in the first place.

Nevermind the legal and criminal implications of that latter misstep; this is
a matter of pure and simple human dignity.

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HarryHirsch
_Eric Alexander, the president of business in the Asia Pacific, then showed
the medical records to Uber CEO Travis Kalanick and SVP Emil Michael_

In short, it's a tone-at-the-top problem, these things are always tone-at-the-
top problems. Why is upper leadership still there?

~~~
toomuchtodo
Apathetic board/investors.

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phreack
Worst is, the executive should have been fired on the spot as his actions were
not only unethical but possibly illegal. Instead he paraded them around for at
least a year sharing them, which makes the whole executive tier basically
complicit. It's practically impossible for Uber's core to be fixed at this
point it seems.

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forgottenpass
An Uber exec files to India to dig up dirt, we know they were buying email-
mined data from unroll.me, and frequently monitored travel of journos, famous
people and one night stands. They have a culture of digging up as much dirt on
passengers as possible. I wonder what else they are still collecting (or
quietly stopped), and what they're using it for, that doesn't have the
explosive headline potential of _medical confidentiality_ and _sex crimes_?

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AngeloAnolin
Trying to further understand, I am unsure why a top Uber executive would need
to obtain an actual medical record of a customer who was assaulted in her Uber
ride? I can't see what value the medical record would bring for Uber as a
company, which in the likelihood will contain medical terminology, that
substantiates whether the incident occurred or not. Wouldn't their lawyers be
involved with the proceedings, as the likelihood that the company would be
included in the trial can be deemed possible as the incident happened in the
confines of the business that revolves around them?

On a side note as well, will the names of the people fired be published? Will
these people fired be actually penalized, or would they simply be hired with
another company and simply move on from the incident?

~~~
UK-AL
My guess is that wanted to get evidence to know if this was real or a plot by
local taxi companies.

Having heard about business in India, bribes and plots to cause harm to your
rivals, are the normal course of business.

This is a terrible way of dealing with it, but I absolutely get it.

Uber just doesn't have any finesse about dealing with local politics and PR.
They just seem to brute force everything.

The idea and execution with uber has been great. They seem to be terrible with
everything else.

~~~
vkou
Bribes may be the way to do business in country _____.

Despite that, if you are an American corporation, and your operation in
country _____ involve bribes, you have broken the law. More specifically, you
have broken American law.

~~~
UK-AL
Yes, which is one of the reasons west corporations don't get india.

Bribes in india are accepted business practice, in western countries they are
not.

In india is fairly common to pay "administration fees" in order expedite
documentation, and licences, otherwise it might get "lost".

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alphonsegaston
If this doesn't convince those doubtful about the depth of depravity among
Uber's top leadership, I honestly don't know what will. Can you imagine the
scene? Kalanick and pals in some luxurious office, discussing strategy over
the medical records of a rape victim?

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nxsynonym
at what point is it safe to say the best option for Uber is to burn to the
ground and re-build?

~~~
fosk
Despite the negative press Uber is growing, revenue is growing, and the
average Joe doesn't really care about any of this as long as his ride to work
still costs less than a taxi.

~~~
glitcher
Yes many people don't care, and I have also noticed many people aren't even
aware of any the Uber negative press. And usually after I bring it up, they
still don't care.

One thing I find interesting to consider is how "uber" succeeded in becoming a
verb in popular language similar to how "google it" is the equivalent of
saying perform an Internet search. Once something gets ingrained in language
like this I feel like it affects us psychologically - the average Joe can
still choose between Uber/Lyft/xyz, but it's so easy to forget the
competitors' names when other people are using language like "uber over here
and meet me".

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johan_larson
Uber drivers pick up and drive paying passengers. Doing so is against local
laws or regulations governing taxi services. Uber runs a service that enables
and encourages this activity on a large scale. How does that not add up to
criminal conspiracy or something similar?

Serious question.

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sp332
This doesn't really confirm whether he was fired or was allowed to quit. Or
maybe just switched companies?

Edit: his LinkedIn still says he works there, so whatever change was probably
pretty recent.

~~~
5706906c06c
LinkedIn has never been a credible source for anything.

~~~
sp332
It depends on the person maintaining it. This one seems complete and up to
date, so if he had started at a new company he probably would update it
promptly.

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s73ver
So at what point does society get to determine Uber no longer deserves to be a
company?

