In Australia, a woman named Swastika Chandra faced a ban from using Uber’s ride-share and food delivery services due to her name being associated with Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party.
Despite the fact that her first name holds a positive meaning in Sanskrit, it was flagged as offensive by the company. This incident was reported by the New York Post.
In an interview with A Current Affair, Swastika Chandra recounted an incident where she attempted to place a food order through the Uber app. However, during the payment process, a pop-up notification appeared, informing her that her first name was in violation of the company’s policies and needed to be changed.
Swastika Chandra, speaking to A Current Affair, emphasized that her name had a long history of positive connotations in Hindu culture, predating its misuse by Hitler. Despite the ban and the offensive flag association, she remained steadfastly proud of her name and refused to change it.
Interestingly, her name posed no problems with official documents such as her birth certificate, Australian citizenship certificate, health care card, or driver’s license. Media reports suggest that she has been unable to use Uber services since October 2023.
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Following the ACA report, Swastika Chandra received support from The Hindu Council and the NSW Attorney General, which led to her reinstatement on the platform. Additionally, the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies expressed their perspective, emphasizing that there exists a significant distinction between Ms.
Chandra’s innocent use of her natural name and the malicious deployment of a sinister symbol to propagate hate or division.
“Uber is committed to facilitating a safe and welcoming environment for all users. For that reason, Uber has a global policy of restricting access to users whose names entered into the Uber app contain potentially offensive words,” Uber issued a statement.
Further adding, it said, “We understand that there are different cultural nuances to names, and therefore our teams address incidents like this on a case-by-case basis to ensure we evaluate each account fairly.”
In this instance, following a review of Ms. Chandra’s request, we restored her access to the app. We expressed our apologies to Ms. Chandra for any inconvenience caused and appreciate her patience during the extended review process.
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