Uber adds live video streaming for teen rides, letting parents monitor trips in real time
Uber has rolled out a new live video streaming feature designed for parents and guardians to monitor their teenagers during rides in real time. The feature uses the driver’s selfie camera, which must be positioned to clearly capture the back seat, giving guardians an unobstructed view of their teenagers while on the road.
With this update, guardians can securely access a live video feed for the duration of a trip. Both the teen rider and the driver are always notified when live monitoring is active, supporting transparency for all parties involved. According to Uber, privacy is prioritized: once a trip concludes, no one, neither the parents, driver, nor Uber, has access to the footage, and no recording is stored after the ride ends.
This safety measure arrives as Uber continues to address widespread legal challenges stemming from allegations of sexual assault and misconduct involving the rideshare platform. The introduction of live video monitoring is part of Uber’s ongoing efforts to improve safety for adolescent riders by providing parents with greater visibility during their teens’ trips.
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External links
- Uber to Offer Optional Livestreams of Teen Rides to Parents and GuardiansBloomberg
- Uber is letting parents check in on their teens through drivers’ selfie camerasThe Verge
- Uber launches live video streaming for teen accountsTechCrunch
- Uber Will Let Parents Peek Through A Driver's Selfie Camera When Teens Are Taking A TripEngadget
- Uber's New Safety Feature Lets Parents Watch Teens' Rides LiveCNET
- Uber launches live video streaming for teen rides, letting parents watch trips in real timeABC News
Comments
Surveillance tech disguised as "protect the children" is getting wilder and wilder by the day. Ask Finnish people if they think this would be necessary. Their answer would be no, because their culture protects their kids - not the government, not big tech.
I do not know what Finnish culture does but any real protection comes from treating minors with respect no less than majors, as well as having a culture that is non judgmental and judges people as individuals instead of groups which allows for open discussions instead of making everyone feel like they have to do everything behind everyone's backs. Since in secrecy of cultures of shame and cancelation and judgment you create the perfect environment for people to exploit and abuse others and this happens regardless of age of those involved.
This is disturbing. First off parents should not be this insanely overbearing. For another this clearly is a violation of any personal dignity for drivers of what little they have left. Third this will undoubtedly be used by Uber to harvest data of drivers and riders regardless of who is in the vehicle.
I forgot to mention this is also a security concern. It leaves this open to hackers. At least there are alternatives to Uber like Lyft which is often cheaper rides but ideally ot would be nice if ride shares that are not so corporate became more normal such as state run systems with low fees.
I : mean recording locally like a blackbox for "incident reporting" if a driver / passanger complains - okay. But even then - only with strictest controls of that "blackbox" and fixed routines like deleting after max 72hrs or so, with no external backups, no AI agents on it to avoid "learning" and collecting faces etc). But ... a live video stream ? Where ? Wich servers ? What ai agents are connected ? what kind of data can be collected ? Biometric data ? Is that gonna be another Flock-Ice scenario ? I'm not sure how to feel about this. It sounds like a cool idea for common protection but it feels like a huge privacy abuse/data abuse. Again.
How is this invigilation even legal?
While not defending it, the video recording inside the cabin is not new, its used all the time, for woman security and for driver's defense, at least that's the excuse, like the previous response, what's new is the ability for an outside to watch it live. Which is this feature, I wonder if the drivers are compensated for the data stream. Most likely not. And I dont even think they consulted country laws, I think mexico doesnt allow recording for miniors for privacy, even schools are regulated. (but no one really monitors or audits them)