Chicago’s new ride-sharing services market their drivers as friendly and safe, asserting they have passed stringent criminal background checks. But a Tribune investigation revealed that one of the companies, Uber, did not check some of the criminal records of its drivers, allowing thousands of drivers to ferry passengers for months, despite not knowing whether or not they had felony convictions. The company’s lack of oversight came to light when the Tribune contacted it to profile its drivers. Uber presented one driver as an example, but declined to give the Tribune a complete list of its drivers. The Tribune later determined that the driver had a 2010 Cook County felony conviction for residential burglary, which should have barred him from partnering with the company. After the Tribune asked about the driver’s record, company officials “deactivated” him and acknowledged their multistate background checks have missed an “unknown” number of county-level criminal convictions. Uber said it now has an expanded policy on background checks that would include federal and county-level reviews for new and existing drivers, a process that will involve redoing thousands of screenings. Uber also issued an apology statement and posted its expanded background check policy online.
