Prosecutors urging finger print requirement for Uber drivers
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Prosecutors have joined with chiefs of police to back a proposed requirement that drivers for ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft undergo fingerprinting as a necessary step to ensure the safety of the public.
Fingerprinting drivers has emerged as one of the more contentious issues involved in the debate over how to regulate the growing ride-hailing industry, which has threatened to supplant more traditional taxi companies in the competition for passengers looking for rides.
"We see no reason why the public should have fewer safeguards when they're interacting with Uber and other companies than they would with more traditional transportation companies like taxis. This is no longer a small segment of our transportation system," Berkshire District Attorney David Capeless, president of the Massachusetts District Attorneys Association, told the News Service.
Capeless wrote a letter last week on behalf the state's 11 district attorneys to Financial Services Committee co-chairs Rep. Aaron Michlewitz and Sen. Jamie Eldridge urging a "stringent screening process" of Uber drivers, including fingerprinting and checks of both Massachusetts and out-of-state criminal records databases.
Michlewitz, who is working to write legislation that would regulate the ride-hailing industry, has acknowledged that fingerprinting remains one of the most challenging issues to resolve. Uber opposes mandating fingerprint screenings of its drivers, and the NAACP and American Civil Liberties Union recently voiced their concerns that fingerprinting could disproportionately affect minorities seeking jobs who may have an arrest on their record, but no conviction.
Criminal record searches using fingerprints, according to the groups, do not always surface enough information to know whether a job applicant was ultimately convicted of the crime for which they were arrested.
"We understand the concerns shared by the NAACP but we stand with the Police Chiefs across Massachusetts who believe that fingerprinting is essential to maintaining public safety with all transportation providers - especially (transportation network companies)," said Dan Cence, a spokesman for the New England Livery Association.
The support for fingerprinting from prosecutors follows the endorsement from the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association, who wrote to Michlewitz and Eldridge in December to take a similar position.
"We are talking about people with serious violent offenses -- not taking away the ability for non-violent offenders to drive," Boston Police Commissioner William Evans said in a recent interview on Boston Public Radio, offering his support for fingerprinting. Evans said the city is moving toward fingerprinting Boston taxi drivers soon, but Cence said the city has encountered an "equipment problem" that has delayed implementation.
Other cities, such as New York, use fingerprints in background checks of both livery and transportation network company drivers.
Capeless said the district attorneys back Gov. Charlie Baker's legislation to regulate so-called transportation network companies, but would like to see mandated fingerprinting added to the governor's bill.
The Berkshires prosecutor acknowledged that the background check system does not always make clear whether someone arrested for a crime had been convicted, but said that companies like Uber should be able to adjust their policies to deal with that.
"It's for the company to resolve that. It's the same issue that taxis cabs have," he said.
Capeless also said the value of using fingerprinting is the ability to both determine whether the person applying for a job is who he or she says they are and to eliminate the possibility of a criminal record linked with a different name, but for the same person, slipping through the cracks.
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