She was chatting with friends in a Lyft. Then someone texted her what they said

2 week_ago 7

Toronto·New

A Toronto pistillate is raising concerns astir her privateness being breached aft she received a substance connection transcript of her speech with her roommates during a Lyft thrust past month.

Ride-sharing institution says incidental was not portion of audio signaling aviator it’s investigating successful immoderate U.S. cities

Nicole Brockbank · CBC News

· Posted: Apr 14, 2025 4:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 1 infinitesimal ago

Woman stands successful  her flat  holding her compartment  telephone  up   to amusement   a text.

Anvi Ahuja received a substance connection transcript of her speech with her roommates during their Lyft thrust location connected March 11. The institution says it is investigating. (Nicole Brockbank/CBC)

Anvi Ahuja noticed a "freaky" caller substance connection from a fig she didn't cognize close aft getting backmost to her downtown Toronto flat past month. 

The substance was a transcript of the speech she'd conscionable had with her roommates during their eight-minute Lyft thrust location from a friend's place.

"I was similar 'who is tapping me?'" Ahuja said. "The operator didn't pass america that we could beryllium recorded."

Within a fewer minutes she called the fig the substance came from and heard this looping, automated message: "We can't link your telephone due to the fact that your operator is not disposable close now."

"It sounded similar a beauteous modular Lyft message, which raised a batch much questions," she said.

Ahuja phoned Lyft that nighttime looking for answers. In that archetypal call, she says a typical told her this was thing the ride-sharing institution was piloting. But past astir a week aboriginal aft pursuing up with Lyft she received a written connection from a subordinate of the company's information squad which blamed the incidental connected the operator for signaling her without her consent and said "proper actions" were taken against the driver. 

WATCH | Toronto pistillate explains concerns astir 'freaky' substance message: 

Ride-share signaling incidental leaves Toronto pistillate feeling 'stalked'

A Toronto pistillate is speaking out, aft a caller ride-share acquisition near her feeling uncomfortable, and unsafe. After the thrust was over, she discovered her backstage speech had been recorded. A transcript of the speech was sent to her from an chartless number.

"These ride-sharing apps are large companies and radical person a batch of delicate conversations wrong cabs and they consciousness similar they're secure," said Ahuja. 

"To cognize that thing — even beyond our app acquisition — in the existent satellite is unafraid anymore is truly freaky and uncomfortable to me."

Lyft says incidental not portion of U.S. aviator program

The institution confirms the incidental took place, but has offered varying explanations.

After CBC Toronto contacted Lyft about this communicative past week, a Lyft typical called Ahuja. She says they told her the institution is moving a aviator programme wherever audio is recorded from immoderate rides and past the transcript is expected to beryllium sent to the ride-sharing institution for notation if a information contented is reported. 

In a connection to CBC, a Lyft spokesperson acknowledged that the ride-sharing institution has an in-app audio signaling aviator successful prime U.S. markets with "strict opt-in protocols" but said this incidental is not related to that aviator programme oregon immoderate different diagnostic being tested by Lyft. 

"Safety is cardinal to Lyft, and we instrumentality reports similar this precise earnestly and volition analyse and instrumentality enactment for violations of our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy," said the statement.

"We tin corroborate that the connection was sent via a masked number, and the operator did not person entree to the rider's idiosyncratic telephone number."

Lyft's privateness argumentation says it works "with a 3rd enactment to facilitate telephone calls and substance messages betwixt riders and drivers without sharing either party's existent telephone fig with the other." And the company's signaling instrumentality argumentation prohibits signaling different idiosyncratic "without their explicit anterior consent." 

The ride-sharing institution wouldn't supply further details astir the root of the transcript Ahuja received, but it appears the substance could person travel from the operator via a masked fig from Lyft's third-party provider.

Incident 'completely unacceptable' 

So however does Ahuja's acquisition jive with Canadian privateness laws? A erstwhile privateness commissioner told CBC Toronto it doesn't. 

A representation    of a pistillate   with glasses gazing into the camera.

Former Ontario privateness commissioner Ann Cavoukian says this incidental is 'completely unacceptable' and breaches Canada's national privateness law. (Dave MacIntosh/CBC)

"It is wholly unacceptable," said Ann Cavoukian, who served arsenic Ontario's privateness commissioner from 1997 to 2014.

"You're paying for a taxi-equivalent to instrumentality you somewhere, Lyft successful this case. And of course, you presume that you're going to person conversations with the radical successful the car without it being taped and transcribed."

In Canada, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) lays retired the crushed rules for however businesses — including companies similar Lyft — can collect, usage oregon stock idiosyncratic information.

The national instrumentality requires companies to get informed consent earlier collecting, utilizing and disclosing their customers' idiosyncratic information, according to the interim manager of privacy, exertion and surveillance programme astatine the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.

Woman successful  a blazer smiling.

Anaïs Bussières McNicoll is the interim manager of the privacy, exertion and surveillance programme astatine the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. (Submitted by Anaïs Bussières McNicoll)

"Passengers not lone person to beryllium notified that they're being recorded, they besides request to beryllium told for what circumstantial intent they're being recorded," said Anaïs Bussières McNicoll. 

"They would decidedly request to get passengers' meaningful consent, informed consent, and that includes being circumstantial astir however the information is going to beryllium collected, however it's going to beryllium used, however agelong it's going to beryllium retained, however it's going to beryllium destroyed."

That ne'er happened for Ahuja, and is portion of the crushed she inactive has concerns astir the incidental adjacent if it was a one-off with her driver.

"Some benignant of signaling bundle was utilized successful the car — that successful itself is simply a breach of my privacy," she said.

"Even if I'm 1 of the precise fewer radical that experienced this, I'm inactive acrophobic astir what happens to our information and our privateness — which is simply a work that Lyft has to its customers."

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Nicole Brockbank is simply a newsman for CBC Toronto's Enterprise Unit. Fuelled by coffee, she digs up, researches and writes archetypal investigative and diagnostic stories. nicole.brockbank@cbc.ca

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