Update: Uber South Africa has confirmed that while the US and Canada will be using a rating-based system for potential rider deactivations, locally the rider quality system will be based on feedback.

“With this new policy, when Uber sees a pattern of riders getting consistently bad feedback, they will receive a warning and will be given advice on how to improve, if they continue to receive bad feedback from drivers after warnings, the next step would be to temporarily suspend their account for one week and if still there is no improvement eventually face the possibility of full deactivation,” Uber South Africa explained in a press release sent to Hypertext.

Late last week, Uber released a statement with some new policy guidelines. The new guidelines stated that riders may lose access to the ride sharing service if they have a significantly below average rating.

“We belong to different communities that teach us the importance of treating everyone with respect and looking out for one another. Today we’re refreshing these guidelines to make them simpler and clearer,” said the firm.

According to Uber the guidelines will take effect in the United States and Canada, where Uber riders and partners will see a full summary of the Community Guidelines and be asked to confirm that they understand or may lose access to the platform.

“Since everyone on our platform is expected to follow these guidelines, it’s important to ensure people see and understand them,” added Uber.

Furthermore the company says that riders will receive tips on how to improve their ratings, such as encouraging polite behaviour, avoiding leaving trash in the vehicle and avoiding requests for drivers to exceed the speed limit.

“Respect is a two-way street and so is accountability. Drivers have long been expected to meet a minimum rating threshold which can vary city to city. While we expect only a small number of riders to ultimately be impacted by ratings-based deactivations, it’s the right thing to do,” concluded Uber.

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