EDMONTON — Ride-sharing giant Uber has banned a customer from its app after one of its drivers posted a video on social media showing him undergoing a racist tirade.

Mandeep Sehgal says it was important for him to draw attention to the issue because South Asian drivers increasingly face racist taunts and Uber took too long to hold its customer accountable warlike.

Sehgal said South Asian Uber drivers are also increasingly installing cameras in their cars for safety reasons due to hate.

“Enough is enough. We’re not going to tolerate it anymore,” Sehgal, 40, said in an interview.

Uber, in an emailed statement this week, confirmed that action had been taken.

“We made contact with the driver and removed the passenger from the rig,” the company said.

Uber added that it had made it easier to report any discrimination on its platform and reminded users that they are required to follow its guidelines, which state “discriminatory language…defaming or asking questions about sensitive topics regarding the national origin, race, ethnicity” and “making racist comments or using slurs is never allowed.”

A spokesperson for the app did not respond to questions about why it took so long to ban the client.

Sehgal said he picked up a man in a remote neighborhood southeast of Calgary on the night of September 21.

Sehgal can be seen in a roughly three-minute dashcam video.

As he starts driving, the man asks Sehgal where he is from. Sehgal tells him that he is Indian.

He asks Sehgal if he is a permanent resident. Sehgal says yes and that he arrived in Canada seven years ago.

Are you going to get a “white girl” pregnant, the man asks.

Sehgal laughs nervously and replies, “Why are you so judgmental?

“Because I was born and raised in Calgary. I am the white blood of the earth. You are on my land. I am the blood of the earth,” the man responds.

“You’re not even close to being here.”

That was enough for Sehgal, who says he no longer feels safe with this passenger and is done with the “ignorant customers” who have complained about immigrants in the three years he has been driving for Uber.

He stopped and ordered the passenger to get out, saying, “You can get out here on your property. »

Sehgal said the man left him shaken and upset.

“I pay taxes. I am a law-abiding citizen. If I have to prove that I belong here, it creates insecurity,” he said, adding that his two children were born in Canada.

Sehgal said he then contacted Uber support to report the man’s behavior and send the dashcam video.

But he said the app’s support agents told him there was nothing they could do. They also refused to remove the customer from the app and the bad driver rating he left behind.

A frustrated Sehgal later posted the video on social media. He said Uber contacted him shortly afterward to warn him that it could not post a video without the customer’s consent, but, again, took no action to hold the man responsible.

He said the video gained traction this month on the internet, after it was shared thousands of times on another platform and Uber eventually banned the passenger.

Sehgal said that he himself had made a mistake. The RCMP ordered him to remove the address he posted from where he picked up the man because it had no connection to the customer, putting an innocent third party at risk of harassment.

Evan Balgord, executive director of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, said Sehgal’s plight is part of a larger and growing problem.

Balgord said he has recently observed a lot of hatred against Canada’s South Asian diaspora in response to politicians discussing immigration and student visas in Canada.

He said Sehgal’s client needs to think about his actions.

“I hope he learns from this experience, changes his beliefs, comes forward and apologizes,” Balgord said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published November 1, 2024.

Fakiha Baig, The Canadian Press