Uber has announced that riders and drivers in India will be allowed to make audio recordings of their journeys as part of a new suite of safety measures, as the company seeks to capture the massive market.
Executives from the American taxi app unveiled the new features at a press event in New Delhi on Thursday. It said that users will be allowed to record their entire trip and may send it to the company if they are feeling uncomfortable. The feature will be in the testing phase in the country later this year.
It also announced the introduction of a four-digit authentication code to ensure that passengers get in the correct car, and promised to intervene when there is a long unplanned stop in a journey.
This intervention, dubbed Ride Check, will come in the form of a phone call to both the driver and the passenger. However, the feature relies on the driver’s smartphone to detect irregularities in the trip.
Uber has been continually dogged by concerns over safety. Last month, the company revealed that it received nearly 6,000 reports of sexual assaults in the US in 2017 and 2018. The self-produced safety report also revealed 464 reports of rape in the two-year period.
Drivers reported sexual assaults at roughly the same rate as passengers, though in 92 percent of the reported rapes the passenger was the victim.
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