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).
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
You are correct, Android requires consent for the microphone. Many people treat permissions like they do EULAs and just hit accept though