Uber has announced the nationwide launch of two features designed to improve the safety of drivers: rider verification and the ability to record video and audio during trips with their smartphones.
Both features have been tested in pilot programs and will now be made available in all 50 states, the company said in a Tuesday (Sept. 17) blog post.
The rider verification feature will go live nationwide Wednesday (Sept. 18), according to the post. It will enable drivers to see a new “Verified” rider badge for riders who have uploaded an ID or had their account information checked against trusted third-party databases.
Uber is launching this feature in response to driver feedback saying they want to know more about the people getting in their car, per the post.
“Earlier this year, we began testing the program in a handful of cities across the U.S.,” Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi wrote in the post. “In those pilot markets, the majority of riders are verified, and they tend to give drivers 5 stars more often. Riders who are verified also get fewer serious complaints from drivers.”
The company’s Record My Ride is now available to drivers in all 50 states after a pilot program, according to the post. This feature allows drivers to use the front-facing camera on their smartphone to record video and audio during trips.
Record My Ride is meant to give drivers another layer of protection on their trips, without having to buy a dashcam, per the post.
“As we mentioned in the past, we built Record My Ride with privacy in mind: every recording is encrypted and stored directly on drivers’ devices, and nobody — not Uber, not riders, not drivers — can access it unless a driver chooses to send it in for review,” Khosrowshahi wrote in the post. “We believe this feature will help promote safety and allow us to more quickly and fairly resolve any incidents that may arise.”
Uber said in November 2023 that it had expanded the Record My Ride pilot program to drivers in a dozen U.S. cities and that it was enhancing the rider verification process to complement the existing process for riders using certain anonymous payment methods.
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