As its ride-sharing company begins to suffer amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Uber announced that it would begin asking certain passengers to take selfies to show that they were wearing masks.
The organization is now asking drivers and delivery staff to use the selfies mask as a condition for signing up to the service. To date, Uber says more than 3.5 million drivers and couriers have completed more than 100 million mask checks.
Uber doesn't need a mask with selfies for all passengers, so if the driver mentions that the passenger doesn't wear a mask, the company says that the passenger will have to take a selfie before using Uber again.
And passengers and drivers are free to cancel a train, without charge, unless the other party wears a mask.
We truly agree that transparency is a two-way path, said Sachin Kansal, Uber's global security manager, in a blog post.
The mask authentication function will be rolled out to the US and Canada by the end of September, and to Latin America and other countries after that. Uber states that this technology identifies the mask as an entity in the picture and doesn't process the biometric information.
Uber also introduced a set of new guidelines aimed at ensuring safety during the pandemic. The organization limited the number of passengers permitted to board an Uber X vehicle from four to three. It also promised to spend $50 million on equipment for passengers, such as face masks, hand sanitizers and wipers. Uber said today that it has provided 50 million face coverings and 800,000 packages of disinfectant sprays, wipes and hand sanitizers to the passengers.
The company's ride-sharing market also continues to rebound from the pandemic. Gross bookings in its ride-hailing business, or the amount of money the firm brings in before paying passengers, dropped 73% year on year in the most recent period.
