Uber will require its drivers to wear face masks as journeys start out of coronavirus lockdowns – and will use new technology to confirm that they are complying. "Our new technology will verify if the driver is wearing a mask by asking them to take a selfie. After we verify the driver is covering their face, we'll let the rider know via an in-app message" the company said in a blog post. Unlike it's other facial recognition software the "Real-Time ID Check", which the company says "protects riders from unverified drivers, and also prevents fraud by ensuring drivers' accounts are not compromised", this technology only identifies the mask rather than the driver's face or other biometric information. Drivers in the United States, Canada, India and most of Europe and Latin America, will be affected by the change, which will start 18 May.

Since Tesla launched its Autopilot function last year, the system has come under scrutiny following two fatal crashes. Now Germany wants Tesla to stop advertising it as the Autopilot function, because it leads to false customer expectations, the regulators have said. The drive-assistance system requires drivers to pay attention and operate the car at all times, but some drivers involved in crashes have admitted to thinking their cars were'self-driving'. Since Tesla launched its Autopilot function last year, the system has come under scrutiny following two fatal crashes. Now Germany wants Tesla to stop advertising it as the'autopilot' function on its cars because it leads to false customer expectations The Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA) has written to Elon Musk's company with the request to no longer use the'misleading' term Autopilot for the driver assistance system of the car.

Uber's new ID-check system will require drivers to confirm their identity with the ride-hailing company at the start of a shift by taking a selfie, which is then crossed reference to the driver's file photo leveraging Microsoft's cloud. SAN FRANCISCO -- Uber is rolling out a new feature Friday that will require drivers to confirm their identities via a selfie photo before each shift. Real-Time ID Check is aimed at both preventing fraudulent use of a driver's account and providing consumers with a greater degree of confidence in the ride-sharing company. "Driver account sharing or theft is a low-frequency problem right now, but when it happens it's a high-severity thing for us so it makes sense to put our security resources on it," Uber chief security officer Joe Sullivan tells USA TODAY. U.S. aims to tame'Wild West' of self-driving cars "We've been testing this new system with tens of thousands of drivers in the past months, and 99% of the time the photos match up," he says, adding that often the few rejected photos "were all about bad lighting."