Five months after an Uber driver mistakenly sped away from a North York home with a sleeping child inside his car, triggering a city-wide police hunt, the rideshare giant says it has retooled its safety protocols following an internal review.
While Julia Viscomi’s five-year-old daughter was found safe more than an hour after the driver dropped off other members of her family outside a friend’s home in March, police told the Star that Uber played no role in helping to locate the vehicle. The child had fallen asleep in the vehicle’s third row during the trip. The adults in the vehicle had made a plan to unload her last, after helping three other kids who were still awake exit with their bags and coats.
The driver was not suspected of criminal activity and no charges were laid.
“While our standard protocol for serious safety incidents directs that only trained law enforcement should initiate contact with a driver,” Uber stated in a news release on Friday, “we recognize that exceptional circumstances, such as the incident on March 10, 2025, may require frontline customer support agents to step in and facilitate communication. As a result, we have updated our internal procedures to reflect this important clarification.”
Toronto council passed a motion in late April asking the city’s lawyer and executive director of municipal licensing and standards to review bylaws and recommend any changes that could require vehicle-for-hire companies and their drivers to “take greater accountability to directly assist customers and law enforcement in emergency situations.”
Shane Gerard, a senior communications co-ordinator at the city, said “staff are currently meeting with vehicle-for-hire industry stakeholders like Uber” to discuss the motion.
Viscomi called Uber’s announcement “a step in the right direction” but said the company should provide more details.
“What does it mean?” she asked. “Will front-line agents be expected to call the driver? And in what types of situations can they intervene? The language is a little unclear.”
Michael van Hemmen, general manager of Uber Canada Rides, sent a personal letter to Viscomi on Friday but the correspondence didn’t shed much more light on the company’s internal review or the changes it says came as a result.
Viscomi shared van Hemmen’s message with the Star.
“Our response could and should have been better, as our policies weren’t built with this type of circumstance in mind,” he wrote. “Previously, our policies directed that only verified law enforcement should initiate contact with a driver during a serious safety incident via a specific request portal. However, we recognize that in exceptional circumstances, such as the one involving your child, time is of the essence.”
In his letter, Van Hemmen said Uber’s front-line support staff are now allowed to “facilitate communication more directly in urgent, time-sensitive situations.”
He said Uber has arranged in-person training sessions with police officials this fall.
Viscomi isn’t ready to close her file on Uber just yet.
“The fact they admitted they could and should have done better is enormous to me,” she said. “But we need more.”
Viscomi said she rejected the company’s initial settlement offer because Uber, at the time, refused her pleas to revamp its emergency protocols.
“I told them I expect financial compensation that reflects the seriousness of what happened that night as well as policy change,” said Viscomi. “I refuse to accept one without the other.”
Viscomi’s lawyer was not available for comment.
