Uber’s ‘View as Delivery Person’ shows how much of your info couriers get

Uber Eats is introducing a feature that will tell you how much of your personal information a courier has access to throughout the delivery process. The feature, called “View as Delivery Person,” is meant to “provide consumers with additional transparency and peace of mind,” especially after potentially awkward or uncomfortable encounters, according to Zach Singleton, Uber’s head of privacy and equity product.

The idea is that the Uber Eats app will show you what information a delivery person has about you before they pick your food up, while they’re making the delivery, and afterward. The basic gist, according to Singleton, is that they’ll only have an approximate delivery location until they actually pick up your order. In most cases, they’ll get your address, first name, and last initial, as well as any delivery instructions and notes when they pick up your order. After they make the delivery, the app reverts to only showing them your approximate delivery location. (What “approximate” means can vary by market, according to Singleton.)

GIF: Uber

According to Singleton, Uber gets thousands of support tickets from people who are curious or have concerns about how much their driver knows about them. That’s especially true for women; Singleton said that women were “53 percent more likely to have a concern about the information that delivery people had when something uncomfortable has occurred.”

The screen will also show you additional info about what type of information Uber delivery people don’t have access to, as well as what extra info they’ll get in scenarios like alcohol deliveries where you have to upload a photograph of your ID to prove that you’re of age.

The company introduced a similar feature for its rideshare app in 2020, called “View As Driver,” which Singleton said was Uber’s “most popular privacy product” even a year after it launched.

Singleton says the screen started rolling out on Wednesday in the US and Canada and that you can access it by going to either the recent order page or Uber Eats’ privacy center (which you can get to by going to the Account tab, then Privacy > Privacy Center).