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

Anvi Ahuja noticed that she discovered a new text message after returning to her Toronto apartment in downtown Toronto last month.

The text is a transcript of her conversation with her roommate while she was taking a car home on Lyft’s eight-minute drive.

“I was like ‘Who was knocking me?’” Ahuja said. “The driver didn’t tell us we could record it.”

Within minutes, she called the phone from which the text came from and heard the loop, automated message: “We cannot connect to your call because your driver is not available now.”

“It sounds like a very standard Lyft message, which causes more problems,” she said.

Called Lyft that night to find the answer. In that initial call, she said a representative told her that it was something the ride-sharing company was driving. But about a week later, after following up with Lyft, she received a written message from a member of the company’s safety team that blamed the incident on the driver’s record without her consent and said “appropriate action” was taken against the driver.

Watch | Toronto woman explains concerns about “weird” text messages:

Car sharing recording incident makes Toronto women feel “stalked”

A Toronto woman is yelling after her recent ride-sharing experience made her feel uncomfortable and unsafe. After the ride, she found that her private conversation had been recorded. The transcript of the conversation was sent to her from an unknown number.

“These shared apps are big companies, people have a lot of sensitive conversations inside taxis and they feel they’re safe,” Ahuja said.

“Knowing that in the real world, nothing is even beyond our application experience, is really weird and uncomfortable for me.”

Lyft says the incident is not part of the US pilot program

The company confirmed the incident, but provided a different explanation.

Last week, after CBC Toronto contacted Lyft last week, LYFT representatives called Ahuja. She said they told her the company was running a pilot program with some ride recording audio and then if safety issues were reported, the transcript should be sent to a ride-sharing company for reference.

A LYFT spokesperson acknowledged in a statement to the CBC that ride-sharing companies have a “strict opt-in agreement” in some U.S. markets, but said the incident had nothing to do with the pilot program or any other features tested by the Lyft.

“Security is crucial to Lyft, and we take such reports very seriously and will investigate and take action against our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy,” the statement said.

“We can confirm that the communication was sent through the mask number and that the driver cannot access the rider’s personal phone number.”

Lyft’s privacy policy says it can “work with third parties that can promote calls and text messages between riders and drivers without sharing either party’s actual phone number with the other party.” The company’s record equipment policy prohibits recording another person “without explicit consent.”

The company shared by the company will not provide more details about the source of transcripts Ahuja received, but it appears that the text can be obtained from the driver via the masked number of Lyft’s third-party provider.

The incident is “completely unacceptable”

So what is Ahuja’s experience with Jive of Canada’s Privacy Law? A former privacy specialist told the Toronto CBC that this is not.

“It’s totally unacceptable,” said Ann Cavoukian, who served as Ontario’s Privacy Specialist from 1997 to 2014.

“You pay the taxi equivalent and take you somewhere, in this case.

In Canada, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) provides basic rules on how businesses, including companies such as Lyft, collect, use or share personal information.

Under the Canadian Civil Liberties Association’s privacy, technology and surveillance program, federal law requires companies to obtain informed consent before collecting, using and disclosing their customers’ personal information.

“The passengers must not only notify them of being recorded, but also of their specific purpose,” said Anaïs Bussières Mcnicol.

“They certainly need to get meaningful consent from the passenger, informed consent, which includes specific instructions on how the data is collected, how it is used, how long it will be kept, and how it will be destroyed.”

For Ahuja, this has never happened and is part of the reason why she is still worried about the incident, even if it is a one-off with the driver.

“It’s a kind of recording software used in the car, which itself is a violation of my privacy,” she said.

“Even if I’m one of the few people who have experienced this, I’m still worried about what happens with our data and our privacy – it’s Lyft’s responsibility to customers.”