Uber driver claims facial recognition app locked him out of system after he tonsured his head

Company denies charge, claims he repeatedly violated community guidelines

An Uber driver who went on a pilgrimage to Tirupathi, and returned with a tonsured head, and shaved beard, per religious customs, claimed that he was locked out of the system as a selfie he uploaded, a part of the logging-in process, failed to identify him and was rejected by the company’s facial recognition system. The company has denied the claim. Speaking to The Hindu, 22-year-old driver Srikanth, a resident of Lingampally, said that he returned from Tirupathi and attempted to log-in on February 27 by uploading a selfie in the Uber partner app. While log-ins are approved within a few seconds, the wait this time was longer, and the log-in request was rejected, he claimed. “After the log-in was rejected, I went to the Uber’s Driver Centre in Kondapur the next day and informed them of the problem. The next day, I tried to log-in again, but this time all my requests were blocked. This has never happened before. It has been more than a month and I am unable to work,” Mr. Srikanth said.