The below information explains how we use Real-Time ID Check in most of the world. For information specific to delivering with Uber Eats in the UK, please tap here
Uber’s Community Guidelines and your agreement to access the Uber platform do not allow you to share your account. This is to help keep our users and platform safe for everyone. For this reason, to help verify that your account is yours, and is not being used by other people, we may occasionally ask you to take a real-time photo of yourself before you go online. We then compare this photo with your profile photo to make sure it’s the same person. We also use selfies to help verify the type of vehicles used to perform deliveries.
In some jurisdictions, Uber may not have Community Guidelines in effect.
The process happens in the Uber app. You’ll be asked to take a real-time or live photo of yourself, like a selfie.
Here are some tips to make sure you submit an acceptable photo:
Your real-time photo will be compared to your profile photo, which is the person we know is definitely you. This means you should make sure that your profile photo is always up to date, particularly if your appearance has significantly changed. If you need help updating your profile picture, tap here.
If your camera isn’t working or the system isn’t accepting your photo, try the following:
We complete verifications in 2 different ways, depending on applicable laws where you live. In most places, when you take this photo in the app, it is sent to us and shared with one of our service providers. Operating under our instructions, the service provider then uses facial verification software to compare this photo with the profile photo you previously uploaded. This comparison is done by creating a biometric faceprint of each photo, and checking to see whether the faceprints match.
When technology results are inconclusive, your photo will be submitted for human review by identity verification specialists. You may lose access to the platform if the specialists determine your photos do not match. Because this process requires human review, it can take a few minutes.
In places where laws significantly restrict the use of facial verification technology and require an alternate method of verification, including the European Union, United Kingdom, and Illinois, you may choose to verify your real-time photo with or without the use of facial verification technology.
If you choose not to have your photo verified using the facial verification software, we will send your profile picture and the photo you send us for verification directly to our identity verification specialists. They then follow the same process described above.
If your verification photo doesn’t look like the person in your profile photo, you submit a photo of an existing photo, or submit an otherwise non-compliant photo, access to your account may be waitlisted for a period of time (ranging from 5 minutes to 24 hours) or suspended indefinitely.
If you think that your account was incorrectly deactivated, you can appeal the decision in the app.
When you make an appeal, the identity verification specialists will review:
Including your previous real-time photos will help the specialists take into account any changes to your appearance, such as facial hair or glasses. If they find that the photos are of the same person, then your account will be reactivated and the non-matching result will not be taken into account for future checks or appeals.
If the specialists still find that the photos are not of the same person or that your selfie is otherwise non-compliant, then your account may remain deactivated.
We do not proactively tell anyone about the verification decisions we reach, although we may disclose this information to authorized authorities with appropriate legal process.
You only have one face, and unlike a password, it can’t be changed if something happens to it, so we take steps to help make sure your data remains secure. An important part of this is ensuring we only retain your data for as long as necessary to achieve our safety purpose.
Uber will keep these photos for 2 years in Europe, 5 years in Asia, Australia, and New Zealand, and 3 years in all other countries. These retention periods are set to allow us to investigate potential account integrity issues, particularly if something goes wrong.
To help further protect your photos, we limit access to those that need to be able to see them. Uber does not receive or store your biometric data. Our vendor does not store any photos and also deletes all biometric data upon completion of the process.
We want to ensure that transgender and transitioning earners are always able to earn using the Uber app. Our support teams are prepared to help should you have any issues while completing a verification. Please navigate to Account > Account settings in the Help Center to update your profile picture.
To learn more about how Uber uses your data and your data rights, please review our Privacy Notice.