NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — A safety feature that first debuted in Latin America in 2019 is now expanding to six cities in the United States, and Nashville is one of those.
As of Monday, drivers and passengers of Uber rides may choose to record audio during trips.
If the feature is enabled in the Safety Toolkit in the app, either member of the ride can tap a blue shield icon on the map screen and hit "Start" on the "Record Audio" option. The recording will stop either when manually ended or shortly after the trip is completed.
“We are thrilled to expand the pilot of this important safety feature to additional cities,” said Andi Pimentel Dunn, Product Manager at Uber. “We’re always looking for ways to leverage our innovative technology to build features that help make Uber safer. We hope this audio recording feature will continue to help give riders and drivers peace of mind by encouraging comfortable and positive interactions while on trips.”
Uber tells users not to worry about access to the recordings. Once a recording is completed, Uber says the audio file will be encrypted and stored directly on the rider or driver's device — whoever it was that chose to record.
To help protect privacy, not even Uber will be able to listen to the recording.
If a safety incident is reported to Uber, however, then a user will be able to attach the audio file to a report and share it with a safety support team. That is when the file would be decrypted and a trained safety agent will be allowed to review the audio.
"From the start, our goal was to design this feature in a way that keeps the recordings secure and protects the privacy of all parties involved." said Uttara Sivaram, Head of Privacy and Security Public Policy. "That’s why we built this feature to immediately encrypt the audio file and store it directly on the user’s phone, ensuring that no one, not even Uber, is able to access the recording unless a user submits it to us to review. And if a driver chooses to enable this feature, it sends a message to the rider, alerting them that audio may be recorded during their trip."
