Didi is trialling an optional video recording safety feature

The tech era's safety vs privacy debate continues

Didi has been announcing and trialling one safety feature after another since the murder of one of its users back in May. First, it was facial recognition to verify driver identity. Then, an in-app emergency services call button followed by audio surveillance from the driver's phone. Now, the company has begun trials for optional video surveillance, according to reporting from iyiou.com (Chinese) and TechNode.

Five cities, including Shenzhen and Nanjing, are currently testing the feature. Cars running the feature are installed with a special camera separate from the driver's phone. When a rider gets into a car, the app asks whether or not they want the ride recorded on video. If they opt-in, there's also an option to end recording at any point during the ride.

As far as privacy concerns go, Didi claims that the footage gets encrypted and stored on its servers, so the driver never has access to the footage, and Didi will only review it if they need to investigate an incident.

Didi's recent onslaught of safety features is, in part, government mandated, but forced or not, any efforts to ensure the safety of its users and drivers can only be seen as a step in the right direction.

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