The story of a woman with an IP address in Shanghai posting to accuse a ride-hailing company is attracting community attention. She went from astonishment to outrage after discovering a series of images of herself being secretly recorded by a male driver in a video inside the car.
Specifically, in her post, the woman recounted that on the day she used the service, seeing the driver working hard, she praised him and even tipped him when she got out of the car. But now she regrets her previous actions after the series of inappropriate and frightening acts by the driver. She claims that the driver installed an additional 360-degree surveillance camera in the car, aside from the taxi company’s monitoring system. The woman also accused this driver of frequently filming many female passengers and attaching vulgar titles to attract attention on social media. She noted that the driver’s account had over two hundred videos, all of which were surveillance videos of female passengers.
After she contacted the customer service department of the ride-hailing company, the driver deleted the videos related to her. However, the woman stated that “the driver only deleted my video, while not removing others.” Nevertheless, as of now, the account believed to belong to the driver has deleted all content.
The incident bears many similarities to a story about a year ago. A male TikToker enraged the Vietnamese online community by posting over 700 short videos featuring images of girls in swimsuits by the beach. This individual claimed to be “specializing in interview content” where the answers were unimportant, but sensitive images were captured. Many interviewed girls refused and tried to avoid the camera, yet a total of more than 700 clips were uploaded, including some with zoomed-in shots of swimsuits.
Returning to the case of the male driver, the customer service department of the company stated, “The recording system in the car is installed by the platform, and drivers are not allowed to install any other recording devices on their own. Whether taking pictures or filming videos of passengers, the driver is in violation of their rights.” At the same time, this department said, “If confirmed to be true, the employee will be seriously dealt with.”
It is known that besides being administratively fined, if the woman suffers serious mental harm due to this incident, the driver and the operating company will be liable for compensation.