inDrive enhances safety of its service with newly added safe calls  between users and drivers in Chandigarh

inDrive, a global mobility and urban services platform, has enabled safe calls for its ride-hailing service, using voice over internet protocol (VoIP). This hides the mobile numbers of its users, ensuring their privacy. Anonymization of mobile numbers helps decrease the risk of incidents of harassment, threats or bullying over the phone. The new feature complements a wide range of existing inDrive safety features. 

Users’ ability to suggest and negotiate a price directly with drivers is essential to inDrive’s set-your-own-price model, and phone calls are often necessary for passenger-driver communications. But unfortunately, access to a personal mobile number comes with the risk that someone may use it for their own purposes, including harassment, threats, or deanonymization. 

To hide individual phone numbers, inDrive has introduced dedicated technology: voice over internet protocol (VoIP) calls. VoIP places calls via an internet connection, so the user’s mobile number is not used at all, while passengers can still call drivers (and vice versa). For VoIP, an internet connection is essential. 

“The safety and security of our users is inDrive’s top priority, and we’re working on many aspects of this challenge.  These include not only in-app features, but also technical enhancements of existing ones; organizational and process enhancements; cybersecurity initiatives; and raising overall awareness about safety do’s and don’ts among our passengers and drivers. With safe calls, we protect our customers’ privacy, while also ensuring a comfortable user experience,” Roman Ermoshin, Director of Ride-Hailing (APAC) inDrive..  

Safe calls will now be available in Chandigarh, India and will soon also be switched on in other cities. To enable safe calls, users simply need to go into their device’s settings and enable the inDrive app to access their microphone. 

Safe calls complement inDrive’s existing set of measures to protect drivers and passengers. These include such essentials as a mechanism for identifying and preventing potentially dangerous orders; the Share Your Ride button; a dedicated Safety Center in the app, with training materials and tips for drivers; a Live Passenger Detection Check, and more.