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Two individuals let car from Turo , a peer - to - equal car - sharing platform , and used them toperform acts of violenceearlier this calendar week .
First , a military veteran driving a Ford F-150 Lightning drive into a crowd of citizenry , killing at least 15 . Then , an active - obligation Green Beret rented a Tesla Cybertruck , parked it in front of the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas , andallegedly blow it up . The driver died by self-annihilation .
On Friday , Turo ’s main executive director , Andre Haddad , pronounce in a program line that he is “ outraged ” thinking about “ how egregiously the two individuals who perpetrated these heinous crimes abused our platform . ” He noted that Turo is influence “ around the clock ” to figure out how the platform could have been misused like this .
And there ’s the rub . How could Turo or any like chopine have preclude this ?
Turo has been described as like Airbnb for cars , a platform where fomite owners can rip out their cars for extra money or even as a full - clock time business ; many of Turo ’s host rent out three or more vehicles on the weapons platform at a time .
Turo say it screens each renter through a “ proprietary multi - stratum , data point - science - ground trust and rubber algorithm ” called the Turo Risk Score , and that the company use 50 inner and outside data point sources to build , maintain , and improve on that grade . It ’s not clear what that means — does Turo perform normal deplorable background signal cheque ? — and Turo has not respond to TechCrunch ’s request for clearing .
Over the years , some big actors have managed to slide through the fissure , embroiling Turo incontroversyafter cars on its platform have been see to be used for human and drugtrafficking . And people who take to be hosts regularly post on the Turo subreddit page about their machine being rent out to people withcriminal histories .
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But even if Turo ’s desktop checks were foolproof , the two culprit of the crime that happened this calendar week in New Orleans and Las Vegas had valid machine driver ’s licenses , clean condemnable backgrounds , and were decorated U.S. military servicemembers , harmonise to Haddad .
“ They could have board any plane , check into any hotel , or rented a car or truck from any traditional fomite rental string , ” Haddad said . “ We do not believe these two mortal would have been sag by anyone — include law enforcement . ”
Turo says it has facilitated 27 million trips over 12 years , and fewer than 0.10 % have ended with a serious incident like a fomite larceny .
So what ’s next for Turo after this ? Haddad noted that aside from investing in meliorate its risk score algorithm , it has also gather a squad of former police enforcement professionals to help tax future risk .
“ We ’re consulting with internal security and counterterrorism experts to learn more about how we can get even ripe and play our part in helping prevent anything like this from happening ever again , ” Haddad aver .
