New York (AFP)
To increase the safety of its users, Uber will offer them from December in Brazil and Mexico the opportunity to make sound recordings of their journey, said Wednesday the company.
This pilot project may eventually be extended to other countries, although Uber stresses that it can not provide a detailed timetable at this time.
With this new feature, the driver or passenger can activate conversation recording by pressing a button in the VTC group application.
When the journey comes to an end, the user will be asked if everything went well. If necessary, he can report an incident and transmit the audio file to Uber in a few clicks.
The recording will then be encrypted and stored on the driver's or passenger's phone. But they will not listen because only Uber will have the key to decrypt it.
This operation allows, according to the company, to make drivers and passengers more responsible while respecting their privacy.
This option was introduced in Brazil in early November, along with other tools to improve the security of Uber users such as a button to directly reach the police in Mexico.
But the US daily Washington Post said Wednesday that Uber planned to test it also "soon" in the United States. The implementation of this feature, however, could be problematic in that each US state has different rules on what is allowed or not to record without the knowledge of other participants in the conversation.
The option proposed in Brazil and Mexico respects in any case the legislation of these countries, says the company.
Uber also wants to first collect feedback from users on its pilot project to possibly modify the option before offering it in other countries.
© 2019 AFP