[NAGDU] The Proposed SelfID system

[Al Elia]

Dear fellow NAGDU members:

In case anyone has missed discussion of SelfID at NAGDU board meetings over the past fifteen months and at last year’s convention:


We proposed SelfID  as a potential tool to reduce the burden of reporting denials on riders with service animals, and to help establish hard evidence when a rideshare company is investigating reported denials. It is not a panacea. That said, we hope it will result in fewer denials for several reasons.

As background on how we proposed SelfID should work, The SelfID registration page on the Uber site/app  will ask the two questions that Uber and drivers are permitted to ask under the ADA regulations: Do you require use of a service animal because of a disability and what service is your service animal trained to perform. We know that the regulations indicate that those questions should not be asked if the answers are readily apparent, like when its a guide dog guiding a blind person, but in reality many people do not recognize blind people and guide dogs, despite existing training. While we have proposed – and the rideshare companies have agreed to – additional training that we hope will be more effective, we are not confident that any amount of training will solve the general problem that blindness/guide-dog use is not obvious to everyone. In effect, SelfID merely offers an option for riders to answer questions in advance that the rideshare companies and their drivers are already permitted to ask of service animal users. That point cannot be emphasized enough: the questions asked during the registration for SelfID are currently legally permissible for rideshare companies and drivers to ask every time a rider with a service animal uses them.

Uber/Lyft will provide a method for a rider to provide answers to those two questions in their apps. If a user opts to use Self ID, which is not a requirement but merely an option, their answers will be saved. For users who have chosen to answer those questions, Uber will add functionality to the app so that Each time  such a rider requests a ride, the app will ask whether the rider would like to inform the driver that they use a service animal and that the driver may not refuse to transport them because of their service animal per federal (and state where applicable) law and Uber policy, and that refusal to transport the rider with their service animal will result in immediate suspension of their driver account and permanent removal from the Uber platform pending an investigation. The driver will not receive this notification and warning until after they have been paired with or otherwise accepted the ride with the rider using a service animal. On the rider-app side, the question about alerting the driver to their use of a service animal may  only appear as a “Do you want to inform the driver that you use a service animal?” dialog, though the registration page should have a full explanation of how thee system works and what the rider is agreeing to by using SelfID.

If the driver cancels the ride, Uber/Lyft will either automatically remove the driver from the platform, or at minimum  immediately suspend the driver and begin an investigation, essentially auto-submitting  a service animal denial complaint on behalf of the rider. The driver will be presumed to have knowingly denied transport due to the rider’s use of a service animal, and will have to provide clear and convincing evidence to the contrary in order to be reactivated and avoid permanent removal from the platform.

In the meantime, Uber/Lyft will immediately match the rider whose ride was denied with the closest available driver of any type, provide the ordered ride either  at no cost to the rider, or at minimum at no additional charge to the rider beyond the initially-quoted charge, and inform the rider that they have been so matched and are being transported gratis/at no extra charge  because the previously-matched driver cancelled the ride after being informed that the rider used a service animal. In the unusual event that the driver is not permanently removed from the  platform due to clear and convincing evidence in the driver’s favor, the rider will be so informed.

In addition, the rideshare companies have already agreed to process service animal denial reports at the highest level of urgency akin to the handling/processing of reports of sexual or other violent assault by a driver. That is for all reports, whether SelfID-driven or not, and that is already happening.

A member raised concerns that riders may use SelfID for a pet. We have suggested to rideshare companies that SelfID registration warn riders that the rideshare companies will permanently remove any rider who fraudulently misrepresents a pet as a service animal. We have also proposed adding that language to the terms and conditions every rider must accept when using the apps. Just as drivers can be investigated for reported service animal denials, we said that misbehaving animals that are purported to be service animals should be reportable by drivers, and the accompanying riders should be subject to the same discipline as drivers.

That member also noted that the SelfID system we proposed was similar to a currently available system whereby a rider always messages drivers to alert them to their use of a service animal,  and reports denials using the existing reporting system. While many of us do that now, it  is a huge burden on us as guide dog users. You either have to dictate a message (or several messages given the length restrictions) every time you request a ride, or keep a message or multiple messages in notes that you swipe between and copy/paste, etc. SelfID essentially removes that burden and presents the driver with the message that you use a service animal and that the law and rideshare company policy requires the driver to transport you. That message also comes not from the user, but from the rideshare company itself, which we believe will make the drivers take it more seriously.

In addition,  if you message the driver under the current system  and they cancel, you have to either call or use the denial reporting form to report the denial. Again, a huge burden on us given the number of times denials happen. Many members have told us that they  are so frustrated with the number of denials that they have stopped reporting them. We thus have reason to suspect that many denials go unreported due to the burden and the perception that the drivers will simply be warned not to do it again. The proposed SelfID will not only reduce the burden of messaging  the driver to establish evidence, but will also reduce the reporting burden by auto-reporting denials. As proposed, it will even either auto-terminate or  auto-suspend the driver pending an investigation.  Whichever way it is implemented, Self ID drastically reduces the burden of establishing evidence and reporting denials, while  presumably increasing the denial-reporting/driver-removal rates.

Some have raised concerns that by offering a SelfID option, it will increase denials of riders who choose not to use SelfID.  we have impressed upon the  rideshare companies that they must  continue to educate drivers on their obligations to transport service animal users whether or not they use SelfID, and they understand and agree. They have assured us that they will continue to educate drivers and will continue  to take reports of denials through the current phone and web/app reporting mechanisms. In short, for those who choose not to avail themselves of SelfID, the system will continue to  work just as it does now. Those riders will be no worse off.

From a legal perspective, the rideshare companies are permitted to offer a program that is specific to riders with disabilities, such as the proposed SelfID system. However, they cannot require riders with disabilities  to use a system for their specific benefit rather than the system provided for the general public, and they cannot discriminate against riders with disabilities  who choose not to use such a program. That goes for both people who want to text drivers as they do now, and people who don’t want to self-identify in any way until the driver shows up and sees them with a dog.

Now for our hopes. By reducing the burden and friction for riders with service animals, we believe SelfID will result in more denial reports. By ensuring companies have written evidence of a knowing denial (the drivers cancellation after receiving the SelfID notification), we believe that denying drivers will be removed from the platform at a higher rate. We believe that will help send the message to all drivers that the rideshare companies take service animal denials seriously. We believe that message and the increased reporting/removal of denying drivers will benefit all service animal users, including those who do not use SelfID.

When discussing potential solutions with rideshare companies and other organizations representing service animal users and trainers, all of the concerns identified above were discussed.  As explained above, we tried to address those concerns in our discussions.  We explained to the rideshare companies why those  concerns must  be guarded against, and explained how we believed they could guard against them.

Finally, to be clear, SelfID was our proposal, not something the rideshare companies foisted on us.  We proposed SelfID because the status quo is unacceptable. While we proposed, and rideshare companies agreed to additional better driver training, and while we   hope that training will help, we do not believe it will be effective enough to drastically reduce denials. Right now the burdens of establishing evidence of knowing denials and reporting those denials falls entirely on service animal users. We all thought it would be great if the rideshare companies could somehow detect evidence of a service animal denial and launch an investigation without burdening the rider.  That is what our proposed SelfID does. We hope it will be successful. That said, we will also continue to listen to our membership,  and if we learn that SelfID has detrimental effects, we will address them as they arise.

Yours,

/Æ

Al Elia
NAGDU Board Member