Petition urging Uber to stop double standards goes viral

Uber office at South City-1 Gurgaon. Photo: Special Arrangement

An online petition by a 26-year-old journalist seeking to urge Uber to shed its “hypocrisy on safety standards” has gone viral and generated support from over 41,000 people on online platform change.org.

“Stop the double standards. Mandate a 7 year background check for all Uber drivers in India like in the US” was started by Delhi-based Alina Tiphagne, who works with an English news channel and hails from Madurai.

“I had actually downloaded their app and was about to give the service a try before news of the rape broke out,” she told

The Hindu . She soon realised that Uber had a strong policy on background checks in the U.S., but nothing even remotely similar in India. After it manages to garner adequate support, her petition, according to a change.org representative, will be sent CEO Uber Travis Kalanick. It is shy of just 8,000 signatures.

“Why aren’t Indian Uber drivers subjected to the same process of background checks? It’s not just a question of government accountability, but responsibility should also lie with the company and the private sector.”