In the midst of anti-illegal immigration protests and growing concerns around driver and passenger safety in South Africa, inDrive has launched a new in-app audio recording feature designed to improve safety, support fair dispute resolution and encourage respectful interaction between drivers and passengers during trips.
Balancing Safety, Privacy, and Transparency in Ride-Hailing
Available in the inDrive Safety Centre, this feature allows either a driver or a passenger to manually activate audio recording during a ride.
Ashif Black, Country Representative for South Africa at inDrive, said the rollout reflects the platform’s ongoing focus on building practical, user-led safety tools.
“This audio recording tool gives both drivers and passengers an additional layer of clarity in situations where misunderstandings might arise. It is designed to support fairness, not surveillance, and it sits alongside our existing safety features, including in-trip monitoring, ride sharing and 24/7 in-app support.”
How the in-App Audio Recording Feature Works
Once switched on, it securely captures in-trip audio that can be used as supporting evidence in the event of a complaint or dispute.
Users are notified of its availability via in-app prompts and can access it by tapping the Safety Centre icon and selecting the recording option.
Designed to encourage respectful interactions
The feature also reflects inDrive’s mission to challenge injustice by creating fairer and more transparent experiences for both riders and drivers. By providing additional context during disputes, audio recording helps support more balanced and informed resolutions.
The feature is intended primarily as a preventative and de-escalation tool. Black notes that most ride-related issues are not serious incidents but everyday misunderstandings, from pickup confusion to disagreements over wait times or routes. In creating an additional record of interaction, the platform aims to reduce uncertainty in these situations and encourage more mindful engagement between users.
“Even before it is used in a complaint, the presence of a recording option can positively shift behaviour,” Black added. “It reinforces mutual respect and helps both parties feel more secure throughout the journey.”
Data security
Privacy remains central to the feature’s design. All audio recordings are end-to-end encrypted and cannot be accessed, downloaded, or shared by either party. inDrive also confirmed that it does not share recordings with third parties.
The encryption key is held exclusively by inDrive’s security team and is only used in the event of an official complaint requiring investigation. Users must also give explicit consent for any recording to be shared with inDrive Support in the event of a dispute resolution process.
Black further emphasised that the feature cannot be activated covertly. It requires manual activation by either the driver or passenger and cannot run in the background without user action.
inDrive’s Vision for Safer, Community-Driven Mobility
inDrive noted that these features form part of its wider commitment to making ride-hailing more transparent and community-driven, particularly in markets where safety expectations and regulatory frameworks continue to evolve. The initiative also supports the company’s ambition to positively impact one billion people by 2030 by using technology to create safer and more accessible mobility experiences.
The audio feature is now live for users across South Africa via the latest version of the inDrive app.
