As the summer travel season starts in earnest, the city of Atlanta is still figuring out how to regulate Uber X and Lyft pickups at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, with debate centered on fingerprint-based background checks of drivers.
The airport’s former general manager had aimed to officially legalize ride-share pickups by Uber X and Lyft at the airport by July 1 — but he’s been ousted and that target date won’t likely be met.
The mayor’s office plans to revise the airport’s initial proposal, which required fingerprints of all for-hire drivers. The revision and Atlanta City Council approval of the result will take weeks.
Some ride-share drivers have made pickups at Hartsfield-Jackson despite a loosely enforced ban, confusing travelers. The city earlier this year began writing rules to formally allow the services, but the details have created concerns for both ride-share operators and other transportation providers threatened by their rise.
A city council transportation committee work session this week drew hundreds of cab drivers, along with Uber and Lyft drivers.
A state official told the committee that a fingerprint requirement would be the surest way to vet ride-share drivers.
“There is no question that if you do a vetting via a fingerprint-based check, that will establish if this individual has a criminal history record,” said Dawn Deidrich, director of the office of privacy and compliance at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
Taxi and limo drivers who have long been fingerprinted favor the same checks for Uber and Lyft drivers, saying they want an even playing field.
But Uber and Lyft argue their own name-based backgrounding, with manual checks of court records, are comprehensive and can include more up-to-date information than fingerprint checks.
Fingerprinting “is not totally accurate,” said Trevor Theunissen, Uber’s public policy director for the southeast. “We have an extensive pre-screening process…. We’re confident that with our technology, it helps to predict and prevent and reduce incidents on the road.”
Uber and Lyft also say getting fingerprint checks done is cumbersome and would hurt their ability to recruit drivers.
Transportation committee chair Yolanda Adrean and some other council members favor fingerprinting.
“It is my inclination that we do level the playing field for all our transportation providers,” Adrean said. “I don’t believe council would say no fingerprints.”
Council member Joyce Sheperd said fingerprinting is “much more a validation.” But she also said Uber and Lyft “provide a service that in most cases the taxi industry has not been able to provide.” For the taxi industry, she said, there’s a “need to step up your game… . The world is changing.”
One question is whether the airport can legally require fingerprints under a new state law that reduced the city’s authority to regulate for-hire drivers.
“We at Uber believe that the state law is very clear — that the airport does not have a choice. The state law says that the airport… must accept a for-hire endorsement or a private background check,” Theunissen said.
Katrina Taylor Parks, deputy chief of staff for Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, said the state law “specifies here that we have to accept either/or.”
But others have argued the airport does have the authority.
“It is my opinion that the Department of Aviation and the city … can set forth stricter regulations regarding the background checks and to mandate one over the other,” said Amber Robinson, senior assistant city attorney.
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