Introducing 2 new privacy features for riders and drivers
Zach Singleton, Senior Product Manager, Privacy Engineering
Today, we’re introducing two more privacy features to our trip experience. First, we’re launching “View as Driver,” which shows riders what their driver sees about them at every stage of their trip. We’re also launching “Profile Data Expiration,” a feature that removes certain personal information about drivers from post-ride receipts. These are the latest in a series of features designed to make riders and drivers feel more secure and confident when using Uber, and we’ve just begun rolling them out across the US and Canada.
Here’s how they work:
View as Driver
Have you ever wondered what drivers can see about you when they pick you up? This new feature lays it all out — riders can see the personal information that a driver sees before accepting a trip, when en-route to the pick-up spot, during the trip, and after the trip ends — exactly during those moments. We also confirm the information drivers can’t see at any stage of your trip, including your last name or phone number, the rating you give your driver, or your profile photo. We built this feature after receiving questions about which information drivers have access to, so we hope it serves to reinforce our commitment to protect your data.
For the next few weeks, riders will see prompts in their app, encouraging them to check out this feature and understand what personal information is shared with their driver. The prompts will only appear annually, but the full feature will always be available for any trip in your in-app Trip History. Additionally, a summary version is available on the web and in your Privacy Settings.
Profile Data Expiration
Drivers should also feel confident that Uber will only share their data with riders when needed to enable a safe and efficient ride.
This feature removes rider access to certain personal and identifying information about drivers from the rider’s app. After conducting UX surveys and speaking to riders and drivers, we wanted to strike a balance between removing personal information that’s no longer needed, while still giving riders the information they need to follow up on a recent ride or reach out to Uber Support to report a safety incident. So 48 hours after a trip has ended, we will remove the driver’s profile page, the driver’s picture, and their car’s make and model from the rider’s view, including from the rider’s trip history and post-trip rating screen. After 30 days, we’ll remove license plate numbers from those same surfaces.
These updates build on our other privacy-focused features, like:
- Address Anonymization, which conceals specific pick-up and drop-off addresses in a driver’s trip history after a trip ends;
- Phone Anonymization and In-App Chat, which allow riders and drivers to communicate with one another without having to share their personal mobile numbers;
- Explore Your Data, which provides riders and EATS users a summary of the data they make available to Uber and insights about their activity on our platform (e.g. “How many times have you ordered from Uber Eats?”).
We are excited to continue expanding the scope of these features and building trust with our users — whether you’re a rider, driver, Eats user or courier. Stay tuned!
