Audio Recording for riders

Audio Recording is currently available in more than a dozen countries throughout Africa, Asia, North America, South America and multiple markets in Europe.

Where available in Europe, riders can initiate a recording through the in-app Safety Toolkit using their own smartphone. Riders can initiate a recording during any Uber trip, including Uber Share trips (if available in the specific market). The other party (driver or other rider) in the vehicle will not be notified at the time of recording, though notice has been given to all Uber users that this capability is available. Drivers will be notified of the possibility of recording when matched with a rider that has enabled audio recording in their app.

Don’t see Audio Recording in your Safety Toolkit? Check that you have the latest version of the app.

Uber is committed to building technologies that help make your Uber experience safer. The Audio Recording feature is intended to help encourage safe interactions while on a trip, determine what happened, and identify the best response after a safety-related incident.

To maintain the privacy of parties in the vehicle, the recorded content is encrypted and neither the riders who record, nor drivers, nor Uber can listen to it. Uber can only listen to the recording if the rider shares it with Uber when submitting an incident report. If a serious incident is reported by a rider, Uber will notify the driver.

To learn more about our approach to privacy, please see our Privacy Notice.

Drivers will be notified of the possibility of recording when matched with a rider that has enabled audio recording in their app. If they do not want to be recorded, they may use the “Didn’t want to be recorded” cancellation reason so that they cancel with no impact on their overall cancellation rate.

If Uber Share is available in your market: riders can choose to take a regular Uber trip (instead of an Uber Share trip), if they want to avoid a situation where another rider could potentially record audio.

It is important to note that riders that record audio are not able to access the recording, as the recording is encrypted on their device. Only Uber can access the recording if a rider chooses to share it with Uber. In case the rider does not share the recording with Uber, it will be automatically deleted after 14 days.

No, if you don’t submit an incident report with the recording attached, Uber has no access to the recording. The recording is automatically deleted from your device after 14 days.

No. The phone will take over the microphone and recording will automatically stop. You’ll have to start recording again on your own after the call.

No, Uber is not listening when the recording is happening as Uber has no access to the recording while you are on the trip. Uber also cannot listen to the recording unless the rider shares it with Uber after the trip, as part of an incident report.

No, other parties in the vehicle will not be notified at the time of recording. Drivers will be notified of the possibility of recording when matched with a rider that has enabled audio recording in their app.

1. You can start recording at any moment by selecting Record audio in the Safety Toolkit
2. Review the description of the feature and enable microphone access
3. You can pause or stop recording at any time.

Note: if you're using your microphone for something else (e.g. phone call), you would need to continue recording manually

1. Go to Help in your Uber app
2. Choose Help with a trip
3. Select the trip and then Report safety issue
4. For phone recordings, choose Share recording when prompted

This will vary based on your mobile phone, but in general 5-7 minutes of recording takes 1 MB of space on your device.

If you do need to submit a safety report with a recording attached, we encourage you to be connected to wifi first. Otherwise, your normal data rates will apply.

Share at the moment: a pop-up window will appear at the end of the trip, and you can share with Uber on the spot.

Share later: in the app menu, go to your trip history, tap on the trip in question, find the recording in your trip details, and share it with Uber.

Please note: you can only share audio with Uber after a trip ends.

A member of Uber’s safety team will review the report and listen to the contents. Appropriate action will be taken in accordance with our policies.

No, the content is only stored on the device. If you delete it, Uber has no way to recover it.

You can start and stop recording during the trip at any time through the Safety Toolkit by tapping the blue shield in the app.

Recording will automatically stop shortly after the trip ends.