China News Service, May 22, according to the website of the China Consumers Association, on May 22, the China Consumers Association held a symposium in Beijing to promote safe consumption of online car-hailing. The China Consumers Association called for strengthening information protection to ensure consumer safety. It should not be at the expense of personal information security. It should not increase the burden and responsibility of consumers in the name of ensuring safety. The China Consumers Association requires online car-hailing platform operators to assume the responsibility of the first person responsible for protecting consumer rights and interests in accordance with the law, strengthen complaint handling, and blacklist drivers who have harassed and violent behavior, and adopt zero tolerance.
The online car-hailing industry has recently experienced a number of vicious incidents that violate consumer safety, which has attracted widespread attention from the society. On May 22, the China Consumers Association held a symposium on promoting safe consumption of online car-hailing in Beijing. The conference promoted the implementation of legal obligations and responsibilities of online car-hailing platform operators by introducing the main issues reported by consumers, discussing the operators of online car-hailing platforms, legal analysis by experts and lawyers, strengthening self-discipline by industry organizations, and expressing opinions by the Consumer Association. It called for strengthening the supervision of online car-hailing and ride-sharing behaviors, promoting the improvement of legislation and regulations on online transactions, and better protecting the legitimate rights and interests of consumers.
At the symposium, the China Consumers Association introduced the public opinion report and consumer complaints on the safe consumption of online car-hailing services. The main opinions of consumers on online car-hailing services include that the driver and vehicle information provided by the platform are inconsistent with the actual situation, the driver’s attitude is not friendly, the driver damages consumer property, the driver and the consumer have violent conflicts, the platform does not handle consumer complaints in a timely manner, and the driver detours and charges more, fails to comply with the agreement, and arbitrarily cancels the order.
Didi, Shouqi Car-hailing, Shenzhou Youche, BAIC Group, Yidao, Ctrip and other online car-hailing platform operators introduced the business types, audit management, operation status of their respective platforms, measures to ensure consumer safety, and handling of consumer complaints. Heads of relevant enterprises and representatives of industry organizations said that they will take measures to strengthen self-discipline and effectively protect the legitimate rights and interests of consumers in response to the problems existing in the field of online car-hailing.
Experts, lawyers according to the current laws and regulations, from the network audit, legal operation, contents of the contract, security, information protection, complaint handling, responsibility and other aspects of the in-depth analysis, pointed out that the network about the car industry is not extrajudicial land, platform operators themselves have legal obligations, such as non-performance or performance is not in place, should bear the corresponding responsibility.
The China Consumers Association pointed out that the right to safety is the first right of consumers, and ensuring consumer safety is the legal obligation of operators. The China Consumers Association requires online ride-hailing platform operators to effectively implement their legal obligations and assume the responsibility of the first person responsible for protecting the rights and interests of consumers in accordance with the law:
- Strengthen online access audits. Effective measures must be taken to strengthen the review and control of vehicles and drivers. In order to ensure public safety, for online booking vehicle services of various formats, standard and consistent review requirements should be adopted for drivers’ driving experience, traffic liability accidents, violent criminal records, etc., and strict verification should be carried out to strictly control personnel access and prevent safety risks.
- Strengthen safety management. It is necessary to effectively strengthen legal training and safety education for drivers, standardize service behavior, and improve service levels; it is necessary to effectively eliminate "vests" and ensure that the appointments of vehicles and drivers are consistent with reality; it is necessary to earnestly fulfill the duty of care, stop ride-sharing and ride-sharing services that do not meet the requirements, and put an end to illegal operations; it is necessary to effectively strengthen supervision and inspection to enhance drivers’ awareness of law-abiding and safe operation; it is necessary to effectively promote professional ethics, encourage drivers to take social responsibility, and protect consumers’ personal and property safety.
- Strengthen contract warnings. It is necessary to fairly formulate and provide standard terms, determine the rights and obligations between platforms, drivers, and consumers in accordance with the law, and highlight in a significant way the content that has a significant interest in consumers, especially safety precautions and risk warnings, after-sales services, civil liability, etc., shall not make unfair or unreasonable provisions on consumers, and shall not use standard terms and use technical means to force transactions.
- Strengthen information protection. It is necessary to collect and use consumers’ personal information in accordance with the law, strictly control the scope of collection, strictly fulfill confidentiality obligations, and strictly prevent information leakage. It is not allowed to disclose, sell or illegally provide consumers’ personal information to others through evaluation, sharing, etc. Where information leakage or loss occurs or may occur, remedial measures should be taken immediately. There are various technical means. To ensure consumer safety cannot be at the expense of personal information security, and consumers should not increase their burden and responsibility in the name of security.
- Strengthen the handling of complaints. It is necessary to attach great importance to consumer complaints, strictly screen the situation of drivers being sued, and eliminate safety hazards in a timely manner. Drivers who are harassing or violent should be blacklisted, and zero tolerance should be adopted to prevent follow-up services from endangering public safety. For acts that damage consumer property, compensation and disciplinary measures should be formulated to prevent similar acts from happening again. For acts that violate consumers’ personal information, it is necessary to resolutely stop and correct, and take immediate remedial measures. For drivers who have been sued many times, it is necessary to distinguish the situation and strengthen credit punishment, limit the number of orders received, and implement effective management.
In light of the "E-commerce Law" being formulated, the China Consumers Association calls on the legislature to further clarify and refine the relevant provisions for e-commerce platform operators, strengthen consumer protection, and prevent e-commerce platform operators from evading their obligations and responsibilities and harming the legitimate rights and interests of consumers.
In addition, the China Consumers Association recommends that the government and relevant departments: First, further improve the standardized management of various types of online booking vehicle services, make clearer and unified regulations on key issues related to consumer safety, and focus on specific implementation; second, strengthen the development of online car-hailing industry standards, data monitoring, service supervision, risk management and control, to better protect the safety rights and interests of consumers.
The Consumer Association reminds consumers that when accepting online car-hailing services, they should pay attention to the safety of personal, property and personal information, pay attention to checking the consistency of online reservations and offline real-time vehicles and drivers, pay attention to preserving relevant evidence, and promptly complain and report problems. Together, we should strengthen social supervision and promote safer and more standardized online car-hailing services.