Uber is facing a class action from women who have experienced sexual assault, harassment or misconduct while using its services, amid criticism of the ride-share giant’s handling of complaints and questions about its responsibility when matching riders with potentially predatory drivers.
On Wednesday, law firm Slater and Gordon announced it is investigating whether Uber’s systems, policies and practices adequately protected the safety of female passengers, and whether the company responded appropriately when complaints involving alleged driver sexual misconduct, assault and harassment were reported.
Slater and Gordon’s public callout for women to register their experiences and potentially join a class action follows a flood of legal actions in Australia and abroad centring on Uber’s handling of driver misconduct claims.
Cindy Bors, Slater and Gordon’s practice group leader, stressed the firm’s legal action concerned Uber’s broad role in passenger safety, as opposed to claims made against individual drivers. At its core would be the question of whether Uber has done enough to protect women.
“Women should be able to get home in an Uber safely, without being frightened or violated by the person behind the wheel, or left wondering whether anyone will listen and act,” Bors said. The law firm began investigating the class action in response to women coming forward with their experiences.
“The harm doesn’t end when the Uber trip ends,” Bors said. “Some people may have felt that their experience was not serious enough to report, or that reporting would not make a difference. We want to hear from women about what happened, and how Uber responded.”
Uber has long insisted its drivers aren’t employees but contractors, and that it isn’t a transport provider but simply matches contractors with riders – an argument it has previously leant on in questions over minimum wages and potential discrimination complaints.
Bors said she did not believe the argument was adequate when it came to sexual assault.
“Ultimately, Uber control and operate a tech platform and control who has access. I don’t think it’s a shield to say that [the drivers] are independent contractors.”
Uber, which has a sharemarket value of $US135 billion ($192 billion), has faced sustained scrutiny of how it deals with driver complaints. While it has stepped up its efforts to ban problematic drivers, it has lost a stream of claims from sacked drivers under an unfair dismissal-style appeals avenue, which opened in February last year.
Reporting from this masthead has revealed that repeated Fair Work Commission decisions have been scathing of Uber’s hands-off approach in response to drivers lodging “unfair deactivation cases”, including its policy of not gathering evidence from complainants – which it argues is best practice to avoid retraumatising victims.
In the absence of any evidence from complainants, the commission has routinely ordered that drivers facing serious misconduct allegations be reinstated to drive on the platform.
Also central to Slater and Gordon’s investigation have been developments in the US, including the litigation of more than 4000 complainants’ cases. The first plaintiff victory occurred earlier this year, with Uber ordered to pay $US8.5 million in damages to a rider.
The New York Times reported last year that Uber had underreported sexual assaults and misconduct in the US, publicly disclosing only 12,522 allegations over five years when court documents later revealed a total of 400,181.
According to the Times , Uber has invested in a sophisticated algorithmic tool to determine the risk associated with pairing specific drivers and passengers. The predictive tool was based on 43 factors such as past complaints about “creepy” behaviour, a driver’s safety history and geographic information such as if a customer is being picked up in a nightlife area densely populated with bars.
In US testing, the tool correctly anticipated 15 per cent of assaults. However, Uber conceded it continued to pair drivers and riders deemed high risk, in part because there were certain situations, such as pick-ups outside bars late at night, where blocking such pairings would leave riders stranded.
Bors said the Times reports raised a key question: “When a platform connects users with service providers and has visibility of safety risks, what responsibility should it bear for identifying and reducing those risks?”
An Uber spokeswoman said that regardless of whether class action proceedings eventuated, “we remain committed to listening to feedback, pushing harder, and innovating more to make every trip better and safer, every single day”.
The spokeswoman said the unfair-deactivation laws continued to make it hard to respond swiftly to allegations and kick drivers off the platform, despite reforms from the Albanese government in June designed to lessen such obstacles. Uber is calling for further immediate reform.
“Safety is a core value at Uber, and we have invested billions of dollars and countless hours to protect the safety of users during trips,” the company spokeswoman said. “One sexual assault is one too many, and we take every report seriously … We are committed to continually strengthening our technology, policies, and procedures to protect riders.”
An upcoming 60 Minutes investigation has shed light on Uber’s processes locally, looking at the case of Canberra woman Taylor Mostacci, who was indecently assaulted by her Uber driver on the way to her university ball in 2021.
“He touched my breasts and I just froze,” Mostacci said, describing the moment when the driver was putting on her seatbelt.
Her driver’s account was suspended after she complained to Uber but was later reactivated after he denied the assault. She reported the incident to police, and in 2025 an ACT court convicted the driver.
Mostacci said five years on, the incident still affects her life.
“I’ll never risk being in an Uber by myself. Uber has a responsibility to take care of its customers, and it has a responsibility to protect us, to look after us.”
Taylor Mostacci’s full story will be shared in a 60 Minutes investigation airing this Sunday.
The Business Briefing newsletter delivers major stories, exclusive coverage and expert opinion. Sign up to get it every weekday morning .
You have reached your maximum number of saved items.
Remove items from your saved list to add more.
You've used all of your gift articles. 3 more will become available on the 1st of every month.
