Anvi Ahuja received a text message transcript of her conversation with her roommates during their Lyft ride home on March 11.
The company confirms the incident took place, but has offered varying explanations.
After CBC Toronto contacted Lyft about this story last week, a Lyft representative called Ahuja. She says they told her the company is running a pilot program where audio is recorded from some rides and then the transcript is supposed to be sent to the ride-sharing company for reference if a security issue is reported.
In a statement to CBC, a Lyft spokesperson acknowledged that the ride-sharing company has an in-app audio recording pilot in select U.S. markets with “strict opt-in protocols” but said this incident is not related to that pilot program or any other feature being tested by Lyft.
If anyone needed another reason not to use their “ride sharing” companies.
Best case scenario - this international crisis with The States pushes Canada to start enforcing PIPEDA (I know, let me dream).
[Commenting instead of editing the post]
The only reason we know this is happening, is because Lyft fucked up once by sending her the transcript. I’d assume it’s happening in every vehicle.
The personal responsibility/choice narrative silicon valley loves so much when it comes to deregulation of labour standards and constant aggressive privacy violations is not useful irl. Any gig worker for lyft/uber/fuckworkers.com isn’t going to feel free to say no (if they have any choice at all).
Seems unlikely. Apple and Google both put indicators on the screen when the mic is on.
I believe apps that require microphone ask for permission (at least on android), why would you allow taxi/ride-sharing (not that recording by itself isn’t a shitty practice)?
My understanding was it would be as a cover your ass thing from the company and they might havr more leveragr on drivers’ devices.
They later backtracked, but their initial statement to her was
she received a written message from a member of the company’s safety team which blamed the incident on the driver for recording her without her consent and said “proper actions” were taken against the driver.
You are correct, Android requires consent for the microphone. Many people treat permissions like they do EULAs and just hit accept though
What the actual fuck
