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Grab launched on Tuesday a system that required new users – which Grab's officials claimed to make up most culprits in app-involved crimes against female drivers – to take a selfie as a form identification before they booked their first ride. The photos will neither be shown to the drivers nor displayed on the customer’s display picture.

She claimed the new system had suppressed at least 45 percent of cases involving 50 percent of users during its initial rollout between last January and April. 

The ride-hailing app has also initiated an internet-based free call option that only displays the name of the customers and drivers. The service aims to support their previous number-masking feature, which hides personal mobile numbers of users and drivers.

“Safety is never an afterthought at Grab. It’s the premise on which Grab was founded seven years ago,” Grab managing director Neneng Goenadi said during the launch on Monday.

The initiative follows an incident in November last year where Grab had come under fire after trying to arrange a meeting between a driver and a victim to settle a sexual harassment case. This prompted netizens to swarm Twitter with the hashtag #UninstallGrabafter deeming the company incapable of handling and protecting female customers.

The mass uninstalling had struck Grab in an already competitive ride-hailing market with its rival Go-Jek, which dominated the ride-hailing market in the country. But critics have also scrutinized Go-Jek after the Instagram account @Gojek24jampublished last March a video of several women drivers recounting their stories of being physically and sexually abused, such as being hit in the shoulders or touched on their buttocks.

As for the customers, Go-Jek previously fired a driver that had allegedly intended to rape a 28-year-old woman who was asleep during the journey. Upon waking up, the driver had let her go after she said she was two-months pregnant. 

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