This topic is today one of the most pressing issues in labor law and occupational safety. In particular, the legal status of millions of people working through platforms such as Yandex Go, Uklon, MyTaxi, Express24, Uzum Tezkor, Wolt, Yango Delivery, Uber, Bolt, and Glovo is being discussed in nearly every country in the world.

In June 2026, the International Labour Organization adopted the first-ever international standard for the platform economy — Convention No. 193. This Convention established new international benchmarks for occupational safety, social protection, and ensuring the labor rights of platform workers.

Who Is a Platform Worker?

A platform worker is a person who provides services through a mobile application or digital platform. Examples include taxi drivers, food delivery workers, couriers, freelancers, home service providers, and those completing online tasks.

Their key characteristics are that they receive work through an app, their working hours are managed by a platform algorithm, a rating system is in place, their income depends on the number of orders, and in many cases no employment contract is concluded.

For precisely this reason, their legal status is disputed in many countries.

What Is the Core Problem?

Platforms typically take the position that "we are not the employer, only an intermediary." As a result, no employment contract is concluded, occupational safety requirements are not applied, work-related accidents are not formally recorded as such, occupational diseases are not accounted for, no insurance system exists, and joining a trade union is difficult. This leaves the worker practically unprotected.

Key Risks for Platform Workers

For delivery workers: traffic accidents, adverse weather conditions, heat or cold exposure, falls, heavy lifting, violence, and excessive working hours.

For taxi drivers: traffic accidents, fatigue, sleep deprivation, customer aggression, robbery, stress, prolonged sitting, and back and neck ailments.

Who Is Responsible When an Accident Happens to a Platform Worker?

Determining liability when an accident occurs involving a person working on a platform is today one of the most complex issues in occupational safety. The main reason is that many platforms present themselves not as employers but merely as digital intermediaries, while service providers operate as independent contractors or self-employed individuals.

As a result, determining liability becomes complicated in cases of traffic accidents, injuries, or harm to health occurring while performing service tasks.

What Does International Experience Show?

In 2024, the European Union adopted a dedicated document on this issue — Directive (EU) 2024/2831. Under it, platform obligations include recognizing a person as a worker if the platform exercises control over them, ensuring human oversight of algorithms, an obligation to explain artificial intelligence decisions, compliance with occupational safety requirements, maintaining a transparent rating system, and protection from unlawful deactivation.

In Spain, couriers are recognized as employees, employment contracts are concluded, workers are insured, and compliance with occupational safety requirements is mandatory.

In the United Kingdom, based on court rulings, some platform drivers are entitled to minimum wage, rest periods, paid leave, and pension rights.

In France, platforms bear additional obligations regarding occupational insurance, accident protection, and vocational training.

In Italy, providing couriers with personal protective equipment, training on road safety, and insuring their life and health are mandatory.

What Are the ILO's Requirements?

Under the new Convention adopted in 2026, platform workers must be guaranteed occupational safety, safe working conditions, protection from violence, social insurance, fair remuneration, algorithmic transparency, the right to appeal artificial intelligence decisions, the right to join trade unions, and the correct determination of their employment status.

What Is the Situation in Uzbekistan in This Regard?

At present, Uzbekistan has not established a separate legal status for platform workers, there is no dedicated law on the platform economy, and such workers often operate under civil-law contracts or as self-employed individuals, with existing occupational safety norms not applied to platform workers.

Furthermore, the procedure for investigating accidents is unclear, there is no legal criterion for determining whether a platform is an employer or intermediary, there is no obligation to provide delivery workers with personal protective equipment, no system of regular road safety training exists, there is no mechanism for monitoring working and rest hours, algorithmic management transparency is not ensured, and no separate mechanism has been established for social insurance or accident insurance.

At the same time, Uzbekistan has ratified ILO Conventions No. 155 and No. 187 on occupational safety and health, which further strengthens international commitments to improving safe and healthy working conditions.

What Reforms Does Uzbekistan Need in This Regard?

1. Legally establish the legal status of platform workers.
2. Recognize platforms as subjects of occupational safety.
3. Introduce mandatory accident insurance for platform workers.
4. Create an occupational risk assessment system for each platform.
5. Introduce a system for providing delivery workers with personal protective equipment.
6. Introduce mandatory training on road safety and occupational protection.
7. Legally enshrine algorithmic transparency and human oversight.
8. Introduce a system for investigating and recording accidents involving platform workers.
9. Incorporate special provisions on the platform economy into the Labor Code and the Law on Occupational Safety.
10. Gradually implement the provisions of the ILO's 2026 Convention on Decent Work in the Platform Economy into national legislation.

Conclusion

The platform economy has become an integral part of the modern labor market. However, organizing work through a mobile application should not exempt the employer from the obligation to ensure occupational safety, create safe working conditions, and guarantee workers' social protection.

International practice increasingly shows that legal relations involving platform workers should be assessed not by the name of the contract, but by the actual substance of control, management, and economic dependency.

For this reason, creating separate legal mechanisms to regulate the platform economy, expanding occupational safety guarantees, and strengthening the social protection of platform workers are also pressing tasks for Uzbekistan.

Prepared by: Begmatov Begzod Abduvakhobovich, Occupational Safety Inspector of the State Labor Inspection at the Ministry of Employment and Poverty Reduction.