{"id":1440806,"date":"2023-11-27T18:25:00","date_gmt":"2023-11-27T23:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1440806"},"modified":"2023-11-27T18:25:00","modified_gmt":"2023-11-27T23:25:00","slug":"police-warn-parents-about-iphones-new-namedrop-feature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/police-warn-parents-about-iphones-new-namedrop-feature\/1440806\/","title":{"rendered":"Police Warn Parents About iPhone’s New ‘NameDrop’ Feature"},"content":{"rendered":"

Police Warn Parents About iPhone’s New ‘NameDrop’ Feature<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Multiple U.S. police departments issued alerts about a new iPhone feature that allows sharing contact info and images wirelessly between two closely held devices, warning that the feature could pose a risk to children and other vulnerable individuals.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you have an iPhone and have done the recent iOS 17 update, they\u2019ve installed a feature called NameDrop. This feature allows you to easily share contact information and photos to another iPhone by just holding the phones close together,\u201d the Middletown Division of Police, Ohio, said in a Nov. 26 Facebook post. <\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cPARENTS: Don\u2019t forget to change these settings on your child\u2019s phone to help keep them safe as well!\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWith this feature enabled, anyone can place their phone next to yours (or your child\u2019s phone) and automatically receive their contact information to include their picture,<\/strong> phone number, email address, and more, with a tap of your unlocked screen,\u201d the Watertown CT Police Department, Connecticut, said in another post.<\/p>\n

The NameDrop option is turned on by default. In order to cancel the feature in iOS 17:<\/p>\n

Open the \u201cSettings\u201d option<\/p>\n

Tap the \u201cGeneral\u201d option<\/p>\n

Tap the \u201cAirDrop\u201d tab, which controls the file-sharing features of the phone<\/p>\n

Once AirDrop is selected, turn off the \u201cBringing Devices Together\u201d option to disable NameDrop.<\/p>\n

Warnings about NameDrop were issued by the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office, Michigan, and the Greenville County Sheriff’s Office, South Carolina.<\/p>\n

In its warning, the Greenville office pointed out that \u201cthe only way your contact information will be shared is if you and the other person hold your phones very close to each other, unlock them both, and then accept the swap.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no way for anyone to get your information without it first popping up on your screen and you or them physically tapping the \u2018accept\u2019 prompt.\u201d<\/p>\n

The risk posed by the feature is something that can \u201ceasily be mistaken or looked past by elderly, children, or other vulnerable individuals,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

Children\u2019s Safety Risks<\/h2>\n

Speaking to CBS 12, Amir Sachs, a cybersecurity expert with Blue Light IT,\u00a0pointed<\/a>\u00a0out that police warnings are largely owing to concerns about the safety of children.<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess if a predator wanted to come in and managed to put the phone near a kid’s phone the fear is that the kid’s details will be transferred to the predator’s phone,\u201d he said. <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cBut I don’t think the fear is based on reality.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Mr. Sachs pointed out that the two phones need to be within around an inch of each other for the NameDrop feature to work.<\/p>\n

When two iPhones are placed together, NameDrop offers users two options: \u201cReceive Only\u201d or \u201cShare.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cReceive Only\u201d means that a user will only receive information transmitted by the other individual. No information about the user will be sent to the other person. Choosing \u201cShare\u201d allows the user to send their information to another individual.<\/p>\n

There are security concerns about accidentally allowing NameDrop to transmit information to strangers.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, we know that it allows you to share it and you can refuse but many people do not check their settings and realize how their phone works,\u201d the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office said in its warning.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

NameDrop is used to quickly share contact information with a large number of people. For example, a person at a meeting can add multiple contacts to their phone in a matter of seconds rather than having to individually type and save each contact.<\/p>\n

Image Manipulation Risks<\/h2>\n

The warning from police departments comes as concerns about children\u2019s digital\u00a0safety<\/a>\u00a0are rising. Children who share their personal info, specifically pictures, with strangers can put themselves at risk of exploitation.<\/p>\n

In a recent statement, the FBI warned that sending images to strangers can result in \u201cmalicious actors\u201d using content manipulation technologies and services to generate \u201csexually-themed images that appear true-to-life in likeness to a victim, then circulate them on social media, public forums, or pornographic websites.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yaron Litwin, a digital safety expert, told The Epoch Times that \u201cone of our recommendations is to be a little more cautious with images that are being posted online and really try to keep those within closed networks, where there are only people that you know.\u201d<\/p>\n

Given the risks posed by AI image manipulation, a\u00a0coalition<\/a>\u00a0of attorneys general from 52 U.S. States and territories urged Congress to study how the technology can be used to generate child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and to implement laws to prosecute such crimes.<\/p>\n

In a Sept. 5\u00a0letter<\/a>\u00a0to congressional leaders, the attorneys general warned that AI can create deepfakes of children, subjecting them to potential exploitation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether the children in the source photographs for deepfakes are physically abused or not, creation and circulation of sexualized images depicting actual children threatens the physical, psychological, and emotional wellbeing of the children who are victimized by it, as well as that of their parents.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

According to a\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0by the nonprofit National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, its tipline received more than 49 million reports of CSAM images last year, up from 33 million in 2020.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nMon, 11\/27\/2023 – 13:25<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bhttps:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/technology\/police-warn-parents-about-iphones-new-namedrop-feature<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Police Warn Parents About iPhone’s New ‘NameDrop’ Feature Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times, Multiple U.S. police departments issued alerts about a new…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1440806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1440806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1440806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1440806\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1440806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1440806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1440806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}