Alphabet’s self-driving unit Waymo disclosed for the first time that approximately 70 human agents are on duty at any given time to provide guidance to its robotaxis, with “approximately half” of them located in two cities in the Philippines.
The fact that Waymo has Philippines-based operators was first announced by the company’s Chief Safety Officer Mauricio Peña earlier this month when pressured by US Senators.
The disclosure came in a new letter sent on Tuesday from Ryan McNamara, Waymo‘s VP and Global Head of Operations, responding to questions from Senator Edward Markey (D-MA).
The letter, submitted on a deadline set by Markey’s February 3 inquiry, is Waymo‘s most detailed public accounting of its remote assistance operations to date.
“Waymo has not used remote driving or ‘tele-operations’ where a human performs the Dynamic Driving Task,” McNamara wrote.
The company’s Remote Assistance agents “provide advice and support to the Waymo Driver but do not directly control, steer, or drive the vehicle,” the executive stated.
The response arrives amid the recent congressional pressure on the safety issues of autonomous vehicles.
On the same day, Representative Buddy Carter (R-GA) separately asked the Department of Transportation to investigate Waymo‘s use of overseas operators, saying it “raises serious and reasonable concerns about roadway safety, situational awareness, and national security.”
Background
The disclosures trace back to a February 4 hearing before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, where Waymo Chief Safety Officer Mauricio Peña was questioned about the company’s remote operations.
Peña told the committee that operators “provide guidance” and “do not remotely drive the vehicles,” adding that the Waymo vehicle “is always in charge of the dynamic driving tasks.”
But when pressed on where those operators were located, Peña said he did not have the breakdown, prompting Markey to respond: “I find that very curious that someone who’s running the program has no idea how that workforce breaks down.”
When Peña subsequently confirmed the operators were in the Philippines, Markey called the practice “completely unacceptable,” describing overseas operators as “transatlantic backseat drivers.”
The senator warned that “overseas remote assistance operations may be more susceptible to physical takeover by hostile actors, potentially granting them driver-like control of thousands of vehicles transporting passengers on American roads.”
The Feb. 17 Letter
The letter provides operational details that Waymo had previously declined to share publicly, even as it withheld several categories of data that it classified as confidential business information.
The company operates four remote assistance centers across two countries.
Waymo operates facilities in Arizona, Michigan, and two cities in the Philippines — according to the company which not detailed which those two cities are.
Approximately half of the roughly 70 on-duty agents at any given time are based in the United States, with the other half in the Philippines.
The company frames this as a small workforce relative to the scale of its operations — over 400,000 paid trips and more than 4 million fully autonomous miles per week across a fleet of more than 3,000 vehicles in six U.S. cities.
Waymo said it has a tiered system with US-exclusive emergency response.
Agents handling the most complex and emergent situations are based exclusively in the United States.
ERT members respond to collisions, interface with law enforcement, collect data for regulatory reporting, and coordinate towing.
Philippines-based agents handle lower-complexity tasks, from vehicle occupancy checks to suggesting paths around obstacles.
Additionally, the company said that it has a 2-mph nudge tool that has never been used.
Waymo revealed that it has developed a capability that would allow a specially trained, US-based ERT agent to prompt a stopped vehicle to move forward at 2 mph for a short distance at fixed steering angles to exit a travel lane on a high-speed road.
“To date, this functionality has never been used outside of training,” McNamara wrote.
Waymo disclosed that median one-way transmission latency is approximately 150 milliseconds for US-based centers and 250 milliseconds for operations abroad.
The company compared this to the duration of a human eye blink, which typically lasts between 100 and 400 milliseconds. Collision alerts are designed to reach operators in approximately 100 milliseconds.
Despite the human interference, Waymo emphasized that its Autonomous Driving System retains authority over all driving decisions.
“The ADS can also reject RA suggestions if it deems it appropriate,” the letter stated.
“This distinction is fundamental to our safety model, ensuring the vehicle’s onboard system remains the primary, real-time authority for safe operation.”
The company said a “vast majority” of requests initiated by the ADS are resolved by the system itself before a human agent even provides an answer.
Commenting on the concerns of the senator over the US drivers license of the Philippines-based operators, Waymo detailed its safety internal procedures.
Every three months, 45% of Remote Assistance agents undergo random drug and alcohol testing, in addition to screening at the time of hire.
Philippines-based agents must hold a valid driver’s license recognized by the Philippine Land Transportation Office, achieve a minimum B2 CEFR English proficiency level, maintain a clean driving record, and pass drug tests.
All agents are retrained and recertified every six months, according to the compant.
Waymo said its Remote Assistance program underwent a comprehensive independent third-party audit by TÜV SÜD, the German safety certification organization, including a multi-day site visit.
The audit confirmed adherence to the AVSC consortium’s best practice on Remote Assistance use cases. Waymo said it believes it is the first company to undergo such an audit against that standard.
Refused to Disclose
The letter explicitly declined to answer several of Markey’s questions, citing confidential business information.
Waymo withheld the frequency of remote assistance sessions per vehicle-mile or per trip, internal operational manuals, operator-to-vehicle ratios, and specific system boundary details.
“The specific data requested constitutes strategic operational metrics and trade secrets related to the performance of our ADS,” McNamara wrote, arguing that disclosure would provide competitors “both domestically and internationally” with insights into Waymo’s engineering progress and give them an unfair competitive advantage.
The company also declined to share its internal Standard Operating Procedures and fallback protocols, while confirming that “all Remote Assistance operations are governed by rigorous safety-first principles.”
Industry-Wide Investigation
Markey’s inquiry extended beyond Waymo. The senator sent similar letters to Tesla, Amazon’s Zoox, Aurora, Motional, May Mobility, and Nuro, demanding details about their remote assistance operations by the same February 17 deadline.
“Without proper safeguards, the AV industry’s reliance on RAOs could create serious safety, national security, and privacy risks,” Markey wrote in the February 3 letters.
At the same February 4 hearing, Tesla VP of Vehicle Engineering Lars Moravy told lawmakers that the company’s driving controls “cannot be accessed from outside the vehicle,” drawing an implicit contrast with Waymo’s remote assistance architecture.
Tesla began operating robotaxis using modified Model Ys in Austin in June 2025 and recently removed safety operators from some vehicles.
Waymo currently provides more than 400,000 paid rides per week and has surpassed 20 million trips cumulatively.
The company said that in its first 127 million fully autonomous miles, its vehicles were involved in 90% fewer serious injury crashes compared to human drivers in the same areas.
It operates in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Austin, Atlanta, and Miami, with plans to expand to additional cities.
The company said it remains open to further engagement with lawmakers and directed Markey’s office to contact Stefania Yanachkov, its Senior Manager of Federal Policy, for continued discussions.
