Uber drivers who are previously convicted criminals
Request ID: FOI-3145-2324 Date published: 04 January 2024
You asked
Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, I request the following information:
1. The number of Uber drivers currently employed in London who have previously been convicted of a crime.
2. The five most common crimes drivers have been previously convicted of.
The information should be made available to me in electronic form if possible.
We answered
Our Ref: FOI-3145-2324
Thank you for your request received on 5 December 2023 asking for information about Uber drivers.
Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act and our information access policy. I can confirm we do hold the information you require.
To ensure the safety of the travelling public, taxi and private hire vehicle (PHV) applicants, as well as those licensees seeking to renew their licence, must meet a range of strict criteria to ensure they are of good character. This is assessed on the basis of an enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check submitted as part of a licence application, information provided by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) and any other information that comes to our attention. This information would be considered in relation to our TPH Driver Policy: https://content.tfl.gov.uk/taxi-and-private-hire-policy-july-2023.pdf.
Once a decision regarding a driver's application has been made the results of the DBS check have to be destroyed. This is in accordance with the DBS Code of Practice which has statutory backing. Therefore, we do not hold all details of convictions and cautions and only those that have been declared to us by the driver.
Licensed drivers are obliged to notify us within 21 days if they have been disqualified from driving or have been cautioned, charged, or convicted of any criminal offence - including any road traffic offences. This requirement is clearly stated in the letter that accompanies all driver licences.
To provide the information you have requested would exceed the ‘appropriate limit’ of £450 set by the FOI (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004. Under section 12 of the FOI Act, we are not obliged to comply with a request if we estimate that the cost of determining whether we hold the information, locating and retrieving it and extracting it from other information would exceed the appropriate limit. This is calculated at £25 per hour for every hour spent on the activities described.
We have estimated that it would cost over £450 to provide a response to your current request. This is because it is estimated that it would take in excess of 18 working hours to retrieve and compile the information you have requested.
We do not centrally record which operator the PHV driver works for, in many cases they will work for multiple operators. Therefore, in order to extract the requested information we would need to manually review the associated driver files to determine if they have driven for Uber. We would then need to check their DBS information. This could potentially involve checking the information of tens of thousands of licensed PHV drivers.
To help bring the cost of responding to your request within the £450 limit, you may wish to consider narrowing its scope so that we can more easily locate, retrieve and extract the information you are seeking. For example, you may wish to reduce the timeframe of your request.
If you want to refine your request or make a Freedom of Information Act request in future, please bear in mind that the Freedom of Information Act allows you to request recorded information held by us. You should identify the information that you want as clearly and concisely as you can.
Although your request can take the form of a question, rather than a request for specific documents, we do not have to answer your question if it would require the creation of new information or the provision of a judgement, explanation, advice or opinion that was not already recorded at the time of your request.
Please note that we will not be taking further action until we receive your revised request.
In the meantime, if you have any queries or would like to discuss your request, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to appeal.
Yours sincerely
Gemma Jacob Senior FOI Case Officer FOI Case Management Team General Counsel Transport for London
