Drivers within the UK are taking authorized motion in opposition to Uber over its real-time biometric identification checks, TechCrunch has reported. A union representing the drivers claims that some members had been wrongly suspended once they had been misidentified, and misplaced their licenses because of this. “[The] facial recognition systems… are inherently faulty and generate particularly poor accuracy results when used with people of color,” the App Drivers & Couriers Union (ADCU) wrote in a blog post.

Backed by two employee’s rights teams, the union is crowdfunding the authorized motion, taken on behalf of former UberEats courier Pa Edrissa Manjang and former Uber driver Imran Javaid Raja. It stated they had been “unfairly dismissed after the company’s facial recognition system failed to identify them.”

“Workers are prompted to provide a real-time selfie and face dismissal if the system fails to match the selfie with a stored reference photo,” the ADCU wrote. “In turn, private hire drivers who have been dismissed also faced automatic revocation of their private hire driver and vehicle licenses by Transport for London.”

Earlier in 2021, Uber was compelled to reclassify UK drivers as staff, providing advantages like pension pay and vacation time. That happened due to a lawsuit filed on behalf of two Uber drivers, James Farrer and Yaseen Aslam, who ultimately helped kind the ADCU in February 2020. 

Transport for London (TfL) pulled Uber’s license in 2019 over “a pattern of failures.” One explicit sore level was that it allowed uninsured and suspended drivers to function within the metropolis, on account of a loophole permitting them to add their images to a different driver’s account. To meet the regulator’s necessities, Uber launched random driver checks through a facial recognition system that makes use of Microsoft’s FACE API know-how, based on the ADCU. (Uber received again its license in September of 2020.)

The union famous that Microsoft withdrew gross sales of its facial recognition software program to US police departments, and that using related software program has been discontinued or banned by Amazon, IBM, Axon and different corporations. It additionally cited stats exhibiting that facial recognition packages are far much less correct for individuals of colour. 

However, Uber pushed again, saying that it would not rely solely on AI. “Our Real-Time ID Check is designed to protect the safety and security of everyone who uses the Uber app by helping ensure the correct driver is behind the wheel,” Uber responded in an announcement to TechCrunch. “The system includes robust human review to make sure that this algorithm is not making decisions about someone’s livelihood in a vacuum, without oversight.” It added that no Uber or Uber Eats accounts is suspended solely on account of AI. 

However, Farrer stated that the union has received at the least 10 appeals in courtroom in opposition to drivers dismissed by TfL that cite Uber’s ID checks. “With Imran [Javaid Raja], Uber and TfL have already admitted they obtained it unsuitable. But he was out of labor for 3 months. No apology. No compensation,”