27.08.2024
2 min
1025
Uber is offering parents a new way to monitor their teens’ safety during rides by allowing them to view live video from inside the vehicle.
The new feature uses the front-facing camera on the driver’s smartphone so that parents or guardians can see what is happening inside the vehicle during their teen’s ride.
Announcing the new tool in a blog post on Tuesday, Uber said it was designed to give families greater peace of mind and complement the standard option of tracking the vehicle on a map.
When a livestream becomes available, the parent or guardian whose profile is linked to the teen’s account receives a notification. The driver may also be asked to mount their smartphone so the camera has a clear view of the back seat.
If a parent or guardian starts watching the livestream, both the driver and the teen are notified at the same time. This ensures that the monitoring does not take place covertly.
Only a parent or guardian whose account is linked to the teen’s profile can access the video.
However, the lack of clear information about opting out of being recorded and accessing the footage afterward has already raised privacy concerns.
Drivers can decide whether to enable livestreaming, while parents or guardians can choose whether to watch it. However, it remains unclear whether teens themselves will be able to opt out of being recorded once the video becomes available.
In addition, TechCrunch reports that passengers traveling with the teen, who may also appear on camera, will have no option to opt out of the livestream.
According to the company, once the ride ends, neither the parents or guardians, the teen, nor the driver will have direct access to the recorded video.
“Uber will only review the encrypted recording if a safety incident is reported and only as part of our investigation,” the company said in an Uber blog post about the new livestreaming feature for teen rides.
The company will store the encrypted recording for 14 days. Uber says it will be able to use the decryption key and access the video only when investigating a safety-related incident.
However, Uber has only confirmed that the video is encrypted. The company has not clarified whether the livestream itself is protected by end-to-end encryption, which could prevent Uber from accessing the footage while it is being transmitted.
The feature is initially being tested in nine US markets, including Atlanta, Phoenix, Cleveland, and Rhode Island. Uber plans to roll it out nationwide in the coming weeks.
The new feature arrives as Uber faces increased scrutiny over how its automated technologies affect people who use the platform.
The Dutch Data Protection Authority fined Uber €825 million, approximately $966 million, for using automated systems to temporarily suspend drivers.
The investigation began after complaints from 171 French drivers. Regulators found that Uber had failed to provide drivers with sufficient information about decisions made by automated systems and had not ensured adequate human involvement in the process.
