Our commitment to trust and safety

You may have seen news reports regarding the safety of sharing cars on Getaround. While we have seen targeted incidents recently, these have been in isolated areas where we are taking additional precautions to safeguard our community.

Keeping our owners and their cars safe is a top priority at Getaround, so we wanted to highlight the steps we take to earn our users’ trust and protect their safety.

Here is how we support and promote Trust & Safety today:

• Automatic user screening and verification. Every Getaround driver must pass a thorough trust and safety screening to verify their identity and driving record. Our process involves 17 points of reference including both social verification and the Department of Motor Vehicles in each state.
• Proprietary Getaround Connect® technology. The Getaround Connect® includes several security features to help keep Getaround cars secure both in and out of a Getaround trip. These features include Enhanced Security, which allows us to immobilize a car and prevent it from starting, even when a person has possession of the physical car key. Connect® devices also include GPS technology for tracking and alerting of a car’s location, which can be shared with local authorities to aid in investigations if necessary.
• Real-time trip monitoring and safety alerts. Our team receives and monitors real-time alerts for late returns and other renter behavior that may indicate a safety event. We monitor these events on a 24/7 basis and our team takes prompt and appropriate action. This includes working with owners and, if needed, local authorities to resolve the issue as quickly as possible.
• Owner controls for blocking untrustworthy renters. All Getaround owners have the ability to mark previous renters as untrustworthy in our product. In doing so, owners can block those renters from renting their vehicle in the future. Repeatedly blocked renters are reviewed by our trust and safety team, and are subject to removal from our service.
• Communicating and enforcing community standards. Using post-trip feedback, our team actively works to enforce our community standards when those standards are not being met. This may include general education, written warnings, fee enforcements, or account suspension.
• Partnership with local authorities. Our team works hard to be a good partner to law enforcement, and cooperates with investigations involving drivers, owners, or their cars.

And here are some steps we’re taking to enhance Trust & Safety moving forward:

• Partnering with parking operators. We are actively working with our local parking lot partners to improve security measures, including increasing on-site security presence and restricting pedestrian access to lots.
• Obscuring car location in search. We are developing product improvements that will help to further obscure a car’s exact location in our product.
• Improvements to Getaround Connect®. We continue to invest in our Getaround Connect® hardware development to refine and improve our existing safety tools including Enhanced Security. We will also help facilitate lockboxes for owners in affected areas.
• Organizing local community events. In affected areas, our team is working to organize a community event with Getaround owners in order to share information and gather new ideas on how we can better partner with and support our owner community in the area.
• Ongoing product updates and developments. Including improvements to our renter verification and stricter fees and policies to discourage irresponsible behavior.

Finally, because we believe it’s important to combat this issue in every community, and not only for our users, we’re continuing to work to develop best practices, and identify trends and potential risk factors that can help us prevent auto theft from happening in the future.

Here’s to a better and safer road ahead.