Uber is looking to bring its global video recording feature RecordMyRide to India, which turns a driver’s smartphone into a dashcam to record the inside of the cab during trips, a top company executive told FE, as part of a broader safety-first push.
The feature, currently available to drivers across the US and parts of Latin America, eliminates the need for separate dashcam hardware — a key consideration for India where device costs have kept dashcam adoption low.
“Dashcams cost a lot of money, so people generally refrain from investing in them. If it’s not a hardware push, and instead it’s a software push, it’s going to be a lot easier to adopt, easier to scale in India,” said Sooraj Nair, Head of Safety Operations, Uber India and South Asia.
The recording will be encrypted and inaccessible to both drivers and riders, with only Uber’s safety team able to decrypt footage upon a safety incident being formally reported.
Backdrop of Uber’s safety push
The development comes as Uber expands its safety-led positioning in India’s ride-hailing market. The company has also rolled out Uber Teens, its supervised ride product for minors, to 37 cities since its launch in April 2025.
The product allows parents or guardians to link a teen’s account to their own, with trip details automatically shared with the guardian, real-time GPS tracking, a three-way in-app chat connecting guardian, teen, and driver, and an enhanced version of RideCheck, Uber’s anomaly detection system, that triggers alerts even on minor route deviations.
An opt-in audio recording feature activates automatically on all trips once enabled, with recordings encrypted, auto-deleted in 7 days, and decryptable only by Uber upon a safety report.
Uber Teens performance
Uber Teens has registered 20% quarter-on-quarter trip growth since launch. Uber currently operates in 125-plus cities in India and plans to eventually bring Teens to all of them. With learnings from India, the product has since been rolled out to Dhaka and Colombo.
According to a survey commissioned by Uber in 2024, 84% of female riders in India said taking an Uber was the safest way to travel home, while 71% said they have used the app to get somewhere in an emergency. Nair said India has consistently been a first-mover market for Uber’s safety innovations, with the 24/7 safety helpline and the earliest version of RideCheck both originating here before going global.