Taxi Apps Accused of Facilitating Sexual Harassment In Brazil

New submitter André Costa writes The companies responsible for taxi apps Easy Taxi and 99Taxis are being accused of making it too easy for taxi drivers to harass female customers (some news reports — in Portuguese — can be found here, here and here). These apps currently disclose informations such as the client's name, cell phone and address to the driver. One customer that started being harassed through offensive text messages after a ride started an online petition demanding that the companies take effective measures to protect female customers. The petition already collected more than 27,000 signatures, and both Easy Taxi and 99Taxis already announced that they will implement features that will protect clients' privacy. At first, users will be allowed to choose if they want their phone numbers to be disclosed. Within a couple of months, both companies said they will provide VOIP calls, which will eliminate the need to exchange phone numbers.

Comments

Re:Not a fix either...

[Karmashock]

Exactly. I'm just tired of bullshit. Once you've taken the red pill you see the corruption and patterns of behavior everywhere.

It isn't even always a conspiracy. It moves like a fad or a meme... it is the wave that goes around a stadium. A mindless and generally meaningless reaction that forms a pattern of behavior.

This whole "uber causes rape" meme has been flowing around the world. And YES I know this article is not about Uber... but it is a result of that meme.

The point of the apps is to bypass the dispatch operators and permit taxi drivers to interact directly with passengers prior to pick up. There's nothing wrong with that. The Taxi driver also already knew where he was picking you up and where he was dropping you off. If they wanted to stock you then they could have done that since always. The only thing they're getting now that they didn't have before is your phone number. OH NOES.

If they really need to fix this issue, worst case they can route all call through some third party phone call anonymizing agent that associates a each passenger and taxi driver with some ID code in the system. Passenger calls the automated dispatch, types in a 4 digit driver ID code and the call is forwarded to the taxi driver. Taxi driver calls the automated dispatch and dials the temporary 4 digit ID code and the call is forwarded to the passenger. The programming for something like that is trivial. There is probably an off the shelf option available that could be set up in an afternoon to do it.

If you really need to fix it... then take a day and do that. I'm just tired of the "taxi app causes rape" meme flowing around. It's fucking bullshit.