Uber is rolling out live video for teen rides, letting a linked parent or guardian look into the car through the driver’s front-facing phone camera. Both the teen and driver are notified when someone starts watching. On the surface, it sounds like a way for teenagers to use Uber independently while keeping parents in the loop. But I don’t see how watching the ride translates into making it safer. This is security theater with a live feed.

A live feed makes the teen safer only if two conditions hold: a. the parent stays vigilant throughout the ride, b. someone close enough to intervene is ready to answer the call. If something goes wrong, the parent must first be watching, recognize it, and report it. Even then, how long emergency responders will take to reach the teenager is anyone’s guess. Put another capable, reliable adult in the car to watch over them, and we have reinvented giving the child a ride ourselves.

Surveillance itself is not bulletproof. The live feed can disappear because of a weak connection, an overheating phone, an app crash, or deliberate tampering. The observer cannot tell which. A driver with bad intent could substitute an ordinary-looking loop, like something out of a spy movie. Preventing that would require a trusted hardware and software chain capable of detecting tampering. Uber has not disclosed a live-feed integrity-check system yet.

The camera itself can become part of the risk. A compromised phone, app, or account could expose the live feed, which by design contains footage of a minor — the person the feature is supposed to protect. This is another nanny-cam problem in a different setting: a device meant to help parents watch over children opens a new attack surface. Uber says the stream is encrypted; after the ride, the driver, teen, and guardian cannot access it, although Uber may review the recording after a reported safety incident. That means an encrypted recording survives the ride somewhere, but Uber has not disclosed where and for how long. End-to-end encryption would be preferable to storing a recording on Uber’s servers.

What I am used to in South Korea is less theatrical. Children often travel to school or private classes without a parent staring at them through a screen. Taxi apps provide the driver’s identity, vehicle details, number plate, route, and expected arrival time — information that answers the useful questions. Did the right person get into the right car, and did they reach the intended destination? Uber already offers live trip tracking and PIN verification for teen accounts. A stronger handoff and escalation system would build on that accountability instead of asking parents to “feel like I’m with” them.

The feature may change as the rollout continues, and some parents will still value the reassurance. But the test of a safety feature is what happens when it fails at the moment it is needed. If Uber truly wants to address teen safety, the answer is not glorified FaceTime.