Toronto woman sent full transcript of her conversation during Lyft ride
A pilot for recording conversation during Lyft rides is going on in some U.S. cities, but it's not supposed to be happening in Canada. A Toronto woman was sent the conversation between her and her friends during a ride, presumably accidentally.
So let me get this straight, they want us to believe the driver recorded their conversation, sent it to a transcription service, then texted it to them? And that their rep also lied about there being a pilot program?
Uh huh. What would either of their motives be?
If the company recorded without consent of the drivers or passengers then its illegal in Canada (could be just Ontario though)
If they blame the driver then there’s no crime as we are one party consent.
But why would the driver text it to them?
Is anyone really surprised, UBER asks for microphone access as a security feature, so you can click record if the driver or passenger feels unsafe. Seems like an extension of this service that maybe wasn't supposed to be directly shared unless am incident happened
You're always being recorded. Techbros do this on purpose. If they get caught they feign innocence.
They skirt the fringes of legislation anyways so it's not like there's ever legal consequences. On the rare occasions there are. It's a paltry monetary fine.
Ahuja phoned Lyft that night looking for answers. In that initial call, she says a representative told her this was something the ride-sharing company was piloting. But then about a week later after following up with Lyft 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.
Bullshit. You can't take it back after admitting to it.
"This could have occurred either through an accidental phone call between the driver's masked number and the rider's masked number (i.e. a pocket dial) that went to voicemail, or an accidental recording of the audio from the ride that was then sent to the rider's masked number via voice-to-text on driver's phone," said the statement.
Bullshit. I don't know anyone who doesn't have a pin or biometrics to unlock their phone. Pocket dials only happen to people like Rudy Giuliani.
So is anyone going to get to the bottom of this? Will there be a lawsuit? This is an incredible breach of privacy and raises profound questions about what is going on at Lyft and any ride-sharing service for that matter. The non-answers provided by Lyft raise even more questions.
For Canadians who may be concerned about data privacy, especially US-based companies that may be subject to giving access to the US government under the US Patriot Act and/or Cloud Act, it might be worth the time to write some politicians for action.
There’s PIPEDA for federal level, as mentioned in the article, and there’s municipal level too. Most major cities have by-laws that govern Vehicles-for-Hire.
I’m not sure what they can do about this issue, but it’s worth raising the concern with your councillor in addition to your MP.
WAS sent. FFS
White nose machine should put an end to that.