Can Didi Chuxing Win Back the People’s Trust with this Hitch 2.0?
Didi Chuxing resumed its Hitch service on May 19, two weeks after the tragic murder of a 21-year-old female passenger in a night hitch ride.
The company has announced six security measures that requires the checks of ID photos and facial recognition from both drivers and passengers.
SEE ALSO: Flight Attendant Killed After Hitching a Ride on Didi Chuxing
After the death of the female passenger on May 5, China’s biggest car-hailing company immediately suspended its hitching service. On May 19th, the company brought the hitching service back to the market, requesting both drivers and passengers to complete “security steps” before reentering their use of the service.
According to the newly launched security measures, passengers need to complete the registration authentication and become familiar with the guarantee and protection measures the company has developed for its hitching service.
DiDi drivers also need to complete the registration authentication and other protection practices as well as passengers’ ID verification at registration stage and whenever they pick up a hailing order.
Didi Chuxing claimed on May 16 that it would strive to prevent any similar incident from happening again. On the new registration page, both drivers and passengers are asked to upload their ID photos for facial recognition checks.
Facial recognition checks will be compulsory for the drivers upon every order and those who fail to do so will not be allowed to proceed with the order. Passengers will not need to pay for any cancelled rides if they find that the driver or the car does not match with the information given through the app.
According to the company’s statements, passengers must update their privacy protection settings by selecting one of the default pictures as their profile photos. At the same time, Didi Chuxing has also inactivated some features such as passenger reviews and personalized tags.
In addition, the company added a “night ride protection” feature to its hitching service and will halt all ride orders from 10 pm to 6 am going forward.
