Amidst the Coronavirus pandemic, Uber in India, today has announced a new safety policy called “mask verification“ feature. The feature is for those riders who have been marked for not wearing masks and will inturn request the particular riders to click a selfie to show themselves wearing a mask as to book the ride with Uber.
The mask verification feature was rolled out in the US and Canada by September end and across Latin America and other countries after that. The technology used for the mask verification only detects the mask as an object and does not process the biometric information.
Earlier this year, Uber devised an innovative technology to ensure that drivers are wearing masks. More than 17.44 million verifications have been carried out throughout India since May 2020.
“At Uber, we believe accountability is a two-way street. Earlier this year, we built the innovative technology to verify that drivers were wearing masks before accepting trips. Today, we’ve formulated similar technology for riders who’ve previously been called out for not wearing a mask while on-trip. Our new policy raises the bar on safety and makes our platform safer not just for you, but for the next rider and driver as well.”
Both driver and rider can cancel the trip (without a penalty) if the either of them is not wearing a mask. Side by side. Uber has been distributing over 3 million masks and 200,000 bottles of disinfectants and sanitisers to drivers with no charge.