[NAGDU] The Why and How of Service Animal Self-ID in Rideshare (forthcoming in the March 2025 Braille Monitor)

[Al Elia]

The following article will appear in the March 2025 issue of the Braille 
Monitor. It is being posted in advance  to provide early access to its 
information for NAGDU members.

The Why and How of Service Animal Self-ID in Rideshare

by Al Elia

 From the Editor: Al Elia is an attorney and board member of the 
National Association of Guide Dog Users (NAGDU), a division of the 
National Federation of the
Blind. At the NAGDU board’s request, he has been working with the 
Advocacy and Policy team on transportation concerns of guide dog users 
since his election to the board in 2021. He serves as the NFB 
representative on the Air Carrier Access Act Advisory Committee, and 
served as the NFB’s representative on a rideshare Service Animal 
Working Group in 2022 and 2023. Here is what he has to say about the 
recently announced programs for service animal users to self-identify on 
rideshare platforms:

Federation family, many of you may have heard that rideshare companies 
are offering, or intend to offer, a means of voluntarily identifying 
yourself as a service animal user on their platforms. You may be 
wondering how riders can use this “SelfID” feature, what happens 
when riders opt to use it, and why the companies went down this path. 
This article will hopefully answer those questions.

Taking the last first, the rideshare companies are offering a SelfID 
feature because of the advocacy of the National Federation of the Blind. 
As you know, our organization has been advocating, negotiating, and 
litigating with rideshare companies over the discriminatory denials of 
transportation to guide dog users for more than ten years. Long ago, we 
reached settlements with both Uber and Lyft to ensure that their 
policies explicitly required drivers to transport service animals in 
accordance with federal and state laws; that they educated drivers on 
that policy and the requirement to transport us with our service 
animals; and that they implemented procedures for reporting, 
investigating, and disciplining drivers who deny us rides because of our 
service animals.

Unfortunately, after many years under those settlements, our experience 
riding with our service animals did not meaningfully improve. Since that 
was unacceptable, we continued our advocacy, demanding better driver 
education on the laws and policies requiring them to transport service 
animals and demanding that rideshare companies treat complaints about 
service animal denials with the same seriousness as complaints about 
assault. The companies agreed, but we still saw no meaningful reduction 
in service animal denials. Anecdotal evidence from members, such as 
drivers telling us that they didn’t care about policies and would just 
drive for the other company if removed from one rideshare platform, also 
suggested that driver education would never solve the denial problem. A 
different solution was needed.

Meanwhile, we riders were growing tired of shouldering the burden of 
establishing evidence of and reporting each and every knowing denial to 
the rideshare companies. Many members told us they had stopped reporting 
denials altogether because reporting took so much time and didn’t seem 
to result in fewer denials. Many of us started messaging drivers to tell 
them we had a service animal, effectively self-identifying as service 
animal users, in order to have the denial occur earlier in the pickup 
and reduce the time we had to wait for a ride that would take us. Those 
messages also ensured that the rideshare companies had written evidence 
to link denials to our service animals in their investigations so they 
could remove the denying drivers from their platforms. We suggested that 
the rideshare companies could make our lives easier by sending a similar 
message for us, by subsequently reminding drivers that policies and laws 
required them to transport service animals if those drivers attempted to 
cancel our rides after receiving the message, and by automatically 
reporting and investigating drivers who continue to cancel anyway. In 
order for that to work, the companies would need riders to tell them 
ahead of time that they use a service animal. That was the origin of 
SelfID.

As many of you know, Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) regulations 
permit rideshare companies and drivers to ask two questions of a person 
using a service animal: Do you require use of a service animal because 
of a disability, and what service is your service animal trained to 
perform? The regulations indicate that those questions should not be 
asked if the answers are readily apparent, like when it’s a guide dog 
guiding a blind person, but in reality many people do not recognize 
blind people and guide dogs. As previously mentioned, the National 
Federation of the Blind demanded more and better training of drivers to 
hopefully increase our recognition. However, we are not confident that 
any amount of training will solve the general problem that blindness and 
guide-dog use are apparently not obvious, as many of us know from being 
frequently told that we “don’t look blind.” In effect, SelfID 
offers an option for riders to answer questions in advance that the 
rideshare companies and their drivers are already permitted to ask 
service animal users whenever we use their services.

The ADA regulations also permit rideshare companies to offer a program 
that is specific to riders with disabilities, such as SelfID. However, 
those regulations also prohibit the companies from requiring riders with 
disabilities to use that program rather than the programs provided for 
the general public and also prohibit them from discriminating against 
riders with disabilities who choose not to use such a program. In short, 
riders have the right not to identify themselves as service animal users 
before pickup, and must not suffer different treatment if they enjoy 
that right. That is why the National Federation of the Blind insisted 
that use of SelfID must be voluntary, that rideshare companies treat all 
service animal denial reports and investigations with the same urgency, 
and that they continue to educate drivers on the policies and laws 
requiring them to transport service animal users whether they choose to 
use SelfID or not. The rideshare companies understood and agreed.

While SelfID was an NFB proposal, we did not advocate for it in a 
vacuum. We worked with other service animal advocacy and training 
organizations, as well as our members, to ensure that community concerns 
were addressed. When rideshare companies suggested or piloted SelfID 
features that could negatively impact our rights, or offered us little 
apparent benefit, we pushed back both privately and publicly, and again 
worked with members and other organizations to amplify our message.

As to how the SelfID programs work, only Uber has released its program 
to the public. This article will not discuss Lyft’s program because it 
is still in a limited pilot and is subject to change.

Uber’s SelfID features are keyed to the rider card that appears on 
drivers’ screens as they are approaching a rider’s pickup location. 
SelfID riders can choose whether or not their use of a service animal 
appears on that card along with a reminder that drivers must transport 
service animals. In either case, if a driver attempts to cancel the ride 
after that card appears, they will be interrupted by a popup reminding 
them that Uber policy and the law require them to transport service 
animals, and that they may be removed from the Uber platform if they 
cancel the ride. If a driver cancels the ride anyway, the rider is 
paired with a new driver and receives both an app notification and an 
email with the following message: “Hi, We noticed that your driver 
canceled your ride with your service animal. We would like to better 
understand what happened to offer you additional support. Would you like 
us to investigate further?” If the rider taps the notification or 
emailed link, they can reply as desired, and provide any additional 
details in a support message. If the rider replies that they want Uber 
to investigate, Uber will investigate the denial in the same manner and 
with the same urgency as if the rider had reported a service animal 
denial using the phone hotline or Uber’s denial-reporting form. Uber 
will continue to take reports of denials through those phone and web/app 
reporting mechanisms for riders who prefer to use them, including riders 
who do not use SelfID.

The National Federation of the Blind proposed SelfID because we believe 
that it will benefit guide dog and other service animal users. As 
explained above, it reduces the cognitive and temporal burden of 
messaging drivers and reporting denials. As a result, denials are more 
likely to be reported, are more likely to be supported by evidence that 
the driver knew a dog was a service animal, and are more likely to 
result in driver deactivations. This not only benefits SelfID users, but 
also benefits other service animal users by reducing the number of 
denying drivers and by conveying to drivers generally that Uber is 
serious about eliminating discrimination.

SelfID will also help quantify service animal denials. In the past, 
rideshare companies were not able to compare the cancellation rate for 
service animal users to the cancellation rate for others because they 
did not know how many times service animal users were transported 
without being denied. By having this data, rideshare companies may be 
able to identify specific locales or populations suffering 
disproportionate denials, and test the effectiveness of different 
solutions.

The National Federation of the Blind will monitor the rollout of SelfID 
and our members’ impressions of the feature. We will continue 
advocating for improvements both to SelfID and to rideshare experiences 
generally for guide dog users. We have already identified areas for 
improvement, such as an option to identify our use of a service animal 
immediately after a driver accepts a ride, and changes to simplify the 
process for telling Uber to begin an investigation. We are also 
providing feedback to Lyft to ensure that its SelfID feature offers the 
maximum benefit to guide dog users.

If you want to use Uber’s SelfID feature, Uber has the following 
information on its website:

“Uber’s Self-ID feature allows riders to notify drivers in-app when 
a service animal may be present during a trip. Riders can choose when to 
disclose to the driver that they are traveling with a service animal:

* No disclosure: Drivers won’t see any service animal indication in 
the rider’s profile.
* Disclosure at pickup: Drivers will be notified upon arrival at the 
pickup location.

To access the eligibility form, go to Account > Settings > Accessibility 
in your app profile settings.”


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