The safety and security of your account is a top priority. To help keep our users and platform safe for everyone, 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 vehicle used to perform deliveries.
Substitution
One of the many positives of delivering with Uber Eats is the flexibility that comes from being your own boss and deciding if, when, and where to work. This includes being able to ask someone else, your “substitute”, to complete deliveries for you.
When your substitute is presented with an identity verification check, they will be required to submit a real-time photo of themselves.
If you have registered your substitute, no further action is required after they have submitted a real-time photo. We will conduct a review of the photo to the one we have on file. If you have not registered your substitute, you will be asked to register them. If you have not registered them within 48 hours, your account access will be restricted.
Please reach out to support if you experience any issues.
Learn more about substitution or registering a substitute.
The process happens in the Uber app. You’ll be asked to take a real-time photo of yourself, like a selfie. As the photo will be used to compare against your profile photo, you should make sure it is good quality. Ways to take a good quality photo include:
You must not take a photo of another photo. This may result in you permanently losing access to your account.
We complete verifications in 2 different ways, depending on applicable laws where you live.
First, in most places, when you take this photo in the app, it is sent to us and shared with Microsoft, our service provider. Microsoft, operating under our instructions, 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.
Photos that are flagged as potentially not a match are immediately submitted for human review by three different identity verification specialists. Because this process requires the input of three people, it can take a few minutes.
Second, in places where laws significantly restrict the use of facial verification technology and require an alternate method of verification, including the European Union and United Kingdom, 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. Note that in certain places where laws strictly limit or prohibit the use of facial verification technology, we may only provide the option of human review.
You will be informed of the decision that is made. We do not proactively tell anyone else 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 1 year in the European Union and United Kingdom, 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. Microsoft 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 Centre to update your profile picture. To learn more about how Uber uses your data and your data rights, please review our Privacy Notice.