Mexico City (Process).– Juan N, a driver at the InDrive platform in Mérida, Yucatán, receives a ride request and accepts it. As it is a platform that allows agreements to be made for the travel fee between driver and passenger, Juan makes an economic offer to transfer his client, named “Diversión”. However, the passenger does not send a counter offer, but rather a peculiar message: “Hello, it’s not a trip, you’re interested in something quick, very discreetly, I’m bottom gay.” Juan N replies: “No, friend, this is for serious work (…). Good luck bro there is tinder” (sic.).
Like Juan, there are dozens of drivers, passengers and InDrive passengers who have denounced messages, suggestive images, intimate solicitations and exchange of payments in exchange for sexual services, as well as drug dealing.
These InDrive practices have been denounced in Facebook and WhatsApp groups to which access was had, in blogs and in the press in various cities in the country, including Mexico City, putting drivers, delivery drivers and users at risk, without that the mobility or public security authorities have taken action on the matter.
InDrive is a mobility platform of Russian origin. It is distinguished by its price negotiation model between driver and user to promote trips without an algorithm. The application began operations in Mexico in April 2018. It has more than 100 million users in 45 countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Guatemala, Colombia, Peru, El Salvador, Chile, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Panama, Honduras. and Dominican Republic.
Since 2019 in Saltillo, Coahuila, complaints have proliferated in groups of social networks and journalists because the InDrive platform is used to offer services, make sexual proposals or for prostitution. The situation is not unknown to the authorities. In July 2022, the Undersecretary of Transportation and Mobility of Coahuila, Rodolfo Navarro, declared to the local press that the platform did not meet the requirements to operate and that there were drivers and vehicles that were operating without proper registration: “InDrive has neither physical offices in Mexico, there is no one to locate ”.
The fetishistic practice of Car Sex or having intimate encounters inside platform vehicles does not only happen in Mexico. In Cartagena, Colombia, they call it a “happy race” when InDrive drivers receive messages from anonymous users who offer a high rate to receive a service that not only includes transportation, but also an intimate encounter on the way or at a destination. As in Colombia, in a Facebook group in Mexico you can read the question: “Any indriver for a happy career” (sic.).
The modus operandi is similar: passengers request short trips to the same point of origin. As the app allows users (drivers and passengers) to send messages or images when requesting a vehicle, this is when the opportunity arises to reveal the true intention: offer intimate services or pretend to pay the fee with sexual favors. In a group of InDrive in the CDMX it is denounced: “The search for sex and prostitution is being generated in this app.”
Technology, innovation and trust are the three pillars on which the collaborative economy and Internet platforms are based. As the French Nobel Prize winner, Jean Tirole, said in his book The Economy for the Common Good, trust in the digital economy means trusting web platforms, the reliability of their recommendations and the confidentiality of data.
A company that collects data such as InDrive or any other Internet platform, “must be at least partly responsible for the misuse that may be made of it by those to whom it is provided directly or indirectly,” warns Tirole.
InDrive drivers have access to customers’ personal data such as phone numbers before, during and after the trip, which is contrary to best practice on data protection held by individuals.
Screenshots show inappropriate dialogue, harassment and even sending voice messages to personal numbers. Some drivers place colored badges such as a yellow ribbon in the rear-view mirror to indicate “that they are willing to have a delicious time.” Drivers from Mérida report that they have suffered harassment from passengers who keep their data, denouncing in groups the misuse of their personal data.
inDrive allows passengers to freely communicate and share the details of their trip with family and friends, through WhatsApp or Messenger, revealing the driver’s name, vehicle model and license plate, as well as the route.
This is the reason why screenshots of user profiles with explicit photos of private parts, from the LGBT community, usernames like “Fun” or driver-user dialogues with content are found on the Internet and in social networking groups. intimate, like a client who wanted to pay for the transportation service with sexual services. The Twitter user @ Soyheri29 posted on his account: “Remember that I am an indriver from 8am to 6pm in Tepic Nay. Morbid trips extra cost, (does not apply with the driver)!”
The complaints do not only refer to sexual services. Users have also requested drugs within the application. In Nayarit, a user writes: “someone who can buy me a glass bag and I will pay them here I will give them tips” (sic.).
Drug dealing was also identified in El Salvador, where in 2018 the police captured a gang dedicated to drug trafficking through the InDriver service. The modus operandi is replicated in other countries such as Colombia or Mexico, where screenshots were identified where they clarify that “the payment would be with pure material (Kristal)”.
Where there are more complaints of drug trafficking through InDrive is Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, where the Secretary of Transportation, Diego Monraz Villaseñor, denounced an InDrive leader, Roberto Padilla Ponce, before the State Prosecutor’s Office in 2022 for the sale of false holograms: “he dedicated himself to committing fraud and taking advantage of the good faith of some drivers who wanted to work well, he sold them some supposed holograms (…) obviously false”.
A tweet and statement from the Jalisco Secretary of Transportation leaves no doubt about how local regulation is evaded: “We met with drivers who were affected by collaborating with an unregulated platform, such as #InDriver, we informed them of the importance of work with those that have authorization and what it implies to provide security to users.”
At the same time, the local deputy Mónica Magaña declared on the radio: “Imagine how worrying that the platform is not registered, we know nothing about them; If something happens to you on that journey, the authority will not be able to do anything because everything is completely unknown”.
The efforts of authorities have been identified in different states of the Republic. This was the case in Yucatán, where the Institute for Territorial Mobility and Urban Development of the State of Yucatán (IMDUT) issued a statement to inform the population that the platform does not have a permit and operates irregularly in the entity, warning of the risk of its use.
The phenomenon has already attracted the attention of the Congress of the Union. Deputy Joanna Alejandra Felipe Torres (PAN) proposed a point of agreement where she called on state governments for transport platforms to comply with local regulations and with registration with the authorities.
Although she referred to all the applications, the legislator specified that “users have denounced platforms such as InDrive for making it easier for them to offer or request sexual practices through it. Likewise, the authorities have shown that thousands of vehicles and drivers linked to said application are providing services despite not being registered as determined by the corresponding laws.
In October 2022 InDriver changed its name to InDrive. Eduardo Abud, InDrive’s director of Public Relations, told La Vanguardia de Saltillo that “we have noticed the existence of some people, who have misused the application, making requests that are completely out of place and that do not go according to for the purpose of our company.”
Abud announced since 2020 the creation of a team of moderators to verify user photos and block them from the platform, in case of sending inappropriate messages. In 2023, complaints about sexual services and drug trafficking are still present.
It was not until June 2023 in Cartagena, Colombia, that drivers’ complaints of harassment and sexual advances on the platform intensified. InDrive justified itself by repeating that it “rejects any type of inappropriate request and that goes against the norms and rules of coexistence of a harmonious society (…). In the event that a passenger or driver makes inappropriate comments, either in the request or in the evaluation section, as is the case with sexual requests, the platform will be blocked immediately.”
Although there are reports of sexual harassment or the sale of drugs on other platforms, these cases generally occur outside of the apps and not within the same platform or by expressly offering services, as is the case with InDrive.
There are numerous experiences that can be found on social networks and in statements by authorities in various entities that state that they do not know the platform or know how to contact company executives.
With a platform that evades regulation or tolerates bad practices, trust in the collaborative economy is damaged, at a time when technology and innovation can deliver the most benefits to the digital society and, above all, for the safety of its users.
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Twitter: @beltmondi
