Shared rides: terms and safety

Shared rides puts people who are going the same way in touch, so that they can travel together and share the cost. There are three kinds of post: a ride a driver offers in their own car, a taxi share where people split the fare of a licensed taxi, and a request from someone looking for a ride.

Shared rides is free. No money passes through the app, the website or us.

Shared rides is run by Denis.pt, Sociedade Unipessoal, Lda (“we”), the publisher of Madeira Guide. We provide a noticeboard and a chat. We are not a transport company, a taxi or TVDE operator, a travel agent or an insurer, and we do not organise rides, set prices or choose who travels with whom.

Any arrangement about a ride - where and when to meet, the route, what each person pays - is made between the users who take part. We are not a party to it. The driver is responsible for the driving and the car; a taxi share is a journey with the taxi operator, on its terms.

A ride on Shared rides must not make the driver money. A driver may ask passengers only for a fair share of the real costs of the journey - fuel or charging, tolls, parking - and pays a share too. The price the app suggests is a guide; you agree on any amount between you and settle it yourselves.

Carrying passengers for payment is a licensed activity in Portugal, reserved for taxis and TVDE operators. The law exempts only car sharing without profit (Lei n.º 45/2018, artigo 1.º, n.º 4). A driver who charges more than the costs, or drives as a business, is outside Shared rides and may be breaking the law. Professional drivers must not use Shared rides to find fares.

In a taxi share the taxi’s metered or agreed fare is split between the people in it. Nobody may charge the others more than their share.

You must be at least 18 and use an account in your own name. A child may travel only together with a parent or guardian who takes a seat on the same ride and is responsible for them; say so when you ask for the seats.

To post a ride, ask for a seat or accept an invitation you need a profile photo. It does not have to show your face, but it must be a picture you may use, and section 6 applies to it as to everything else. If you sign in with Google and have no photo yet, your Google profile picture is used, after the same check as an upload; you can change it at any time.

If you drive, you must hold a driving licence valid in Portugal for the car, drive a car you are entitled to use, and keep it roadworthy, with compulsory motor insurance and a valid periodic inspection (IPO) where one is due. Check with your insurer, or in the rental agreement for a hire car, that carrying passengers who share costs is covered. Follow the Highway Code: a seat belt for everyone, the child seats the law requires, no alcohol, no phone at the wheel.

You may not take part while your account is barred from Shared rides.

We do not verify identities, driving licences, insurance, the condition of cars, criminal records or anything users say about themselves. Names and profile photos are what users chose; we check photos only for content that is not allowed (section 7), not whether they show the person. A ride shown on Shared rides is not a recommendation by us.

Whether you travel with someone is your decision. Read the safety tips below before you go.

Post only rides and requests you mean to make, keep the details and the seats up to date, and cancel as soon as your plans change. Be on time and treat the others with respect.

Not allowed, in texts and in photos alike: harassment, threats, hate or discrimination, nudity or sexual content, violence or gore, spam or advertising, offering goods or services, asking for payment in advance or for card details, codes or identity documents, publishing other people’s personal data, and anything illegal. Links and phone numbers may be shared in any chat and in a ride’s note; a text that uses one to advertise, or repeats one across rides, can be stopped by the spam check (section 7).

Every chat message and ride note is checked automatically when it is sent. A language model that OpenAI runs for us looks for abuse: a text it finds clearly against these terms is shown only to its author, and one it is unsure about is delivered and put in front of our team. A spam check looks for advertising, scams and people collecting contacts: first with our own rules, which also look at the author’s messages and notes of the past week, and, when those find a text suspect, with the Jev model by TypeSafe AI, which we use through Vercel’s AI Gateway. Spam it is sure about is not delivered; spam it is unsure about is held until our team approves or rejects it, and looks sent to its author until then. When a text of yours is not delivered, by the check or by our team, the app says so under it.

Profile photos and photos sent in a chat are checked before they are stored, by OpenAI’s image moderation and an image model that OpenAI runs for us. A photo they refuse is never stored or shown, and you are asked to choose another. A chat photo is shown only inside that chat, from a web address nobody can guess; anyone who receives it can keep a copy, and a person who leaves the chat or is blocked can still open the photos already sent to them. The app makes a new copy of it on your phone before sending, so the place it was taken and the other details the camera saved in the file stay on your phone.

The checks can be wrong either way. They only stop a single message, note or photo: they never cancel a ride or bar an account.

A reader can ask for a message to be translated. Translations are made automatically and can be inaccurate; the original is what counts.

Ride chats are not end-to-end encrypted. Our team reads messages and looks at photos when they are reported, flagged or held by the checks, together with the messages around them, to decide what to do. Messages are kept, also after an account is deleted (see the Shared rides section of the privacy policy), so share no more personal information in a chat than the ride needs.

Anyone can tell us about a ride, a message or a user they believe is illegal or against these terms: with Report in the app, or by email to i+madeira1@denis.pt - also without an account, for example about a ride’s public page. Say what it is, where we find it and why you are reporting it. We confirm that we received it, look at reports in the order they come, sooner when someone’s safety is at stake, and tell you what we decided.

You can also block anyone you meet in Shared rides. A block works both ways and on every site and app of ours that offers Shared rides: neither of you sees the other’s rides, requests or messages any more, neither can ask to join the other’s rides or invite the other, and from then on you are taken off each other’s rides. The person you block is not told. You can unblock them in the app; that does not give back a place on a ride.

Depending on what we find, we may hide a message or a ride note, remove a profile photo, cancel a ride, or bar an account from Shared rides. A bar is permanent, with no end date: it stays until we lift it, for instance after a review you asked for. A bar stops the account from posting, asking for seats and writing in ride chats; the rest of the account and the app stay as they are. Removing a profile photo, cancelling a ride and barring an account are always decided by a person, and only our team sets a bar: an account whose texts the spam check stops again and again is shown to our team, but never barred automatically. A bar applies on every site and app of ours that offers Shared rides, not only the one where it was decided. It also outlasts the account: we keep a one-way fingerprint of the login, so that a bar cannot be avoided by deleting the account and registering again.

When we act against your content or your account, we tell you what we did, the facts behind it, which section of these terms or which law it rests on, and how to challenge it. When a check in section 7 hides a single message or note, or does not deliver it, the app tells you under it. You can ask us to review any decision within six months by replying to it or writing to i+madeira1@denis.pt; someone who was not involved in the first decision will look again. You can also complain to ANACOM, Portugal’s Digital Services Coordinator, or go to court.

If we learn of anything that suggests a threat to someone’s life or safety, we inform the police. Our point of contact for users and for authorities under the Digital Services Act is i+madeira1@denis.pt, in English, Portuguese and any of the languages of this site.

Shared rides is a free service that only puts users in touch. As far as the law allows, we are not responsible for whether a ride takes place, for delays, cancellations or no-shows, for what users say or do, for the condition of a car, for accidents, injury, loss or damage during a ride, or for the money users agree between them. A claim about a ride is between the people who took part in it; after an accident, the driver’s motor insurance is the first place to turn.

Nothing in these terms limits or excludes our liability for death or personal injury caused by our fault, for damage we cause intentionally or through gross negligence, or any other liability that Portuguese or EU law does not allow to be limited, and nothing in them takes away your rights as a consumer.

You can stop using Shared rides at any time: cancel your rides and leave the chats. We may change Shared rides or stop offering it; open rides are then cancelled and the people on them told.

When these terms change in a way that matters, the version date above changes, and you are asked to accept the new version before you next post or ask for a seat.

These terms are governed by Portuguese law. If you live in the EU, you can also rely on the mandatory law and the courts of your own country. Questions, reports and appeals: i+madeira1@denis.pt.