Didi Axes Social Features

China’s biggest ride-sharing company, Didi Chuxing, will disable features such as profile pictures, ratings and public tags from its carpooling service, as it looks to win back trust following the killing of a passenger that sparked questions about safety. The 21-year-old female passenger, a flight attendant, was killed this month while traveling from an airport hotel to the eastern Chinese city Zhengzhou’s downtown area, allegedly by her driver who bypassed defective safety controls in the app, Reuters reported. Didi said it will disable carpooling at night and make facial recognition checks compulsory for drivers. It also proposed recording audio for every trip as an added security measure on its carpooling feature “Didi Hitch” that has been temporarily suspended this week. The ride-sharing firm has already apologized for the death of the passenger. Didi has said its facial recognition mechanism was defective and had failed to verify the driver who allegedly killed the passenger. The male suspect had used a driver account that belonged to his father, contrary to Didi’s policy, the company has said.