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iPhone iOS 17 NameDrop privacy fears debunked
In This Article
Apple iOS 17.1’sNameDrop featurehas been in the news lately with police departments in the US advising iPhone users to turn off the ability to easily share contact information with others.
However, those privacy fears are overblown according to experts and anyone who has actually looked into how the feature works.
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NameDrop uses theAirDrop technologytechnology already offered by Apple with a tweak to make it possible for two iPhone owners to exchange contact information when an unlockediPhoneis placed a few centimetres from the top of another iPhone or Apple Watch.
Once a connection is made, theNameDrop menu will appearon both displays, and users will be given the options to share and receive the contact details.
The privacy fears had centred around the idea anyone could place an iPhone in the close vicinity of another and steal their contact details.
“IMPORTANT PRIVACY UPDATE: If you have an iPhone and have done the recent iOS 17 update, they have set a new feature called NameDrop defaulted to ON. This feature allows the sharing of your contact info just by bringing your phones close together,” wrote a Pennsylvania police departmenton Facebookearlier this month (viaForbes). “To shut this off go to Settings, General, AirDrop, Bringing Devices Together. Change to OFF.”
However, because the phone needs to be unlocked to begin with, it dramatically reduces the possibility of this happening in a clandestine manner. That’s before you even get onto the fact that the contact sharing must be approved by all parties involved.
Oh, and one more thing, both phones need to be updated to iOS 17.1 in order for the feature to be available in the first place. So the chances of this being dangerous become very slim indeed. There’s no adverse privacy risk surrounding the NameDrop feature and you shouldn’t feel the need to disable it.
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Chris Smith is a freelance technology journalist for a host of UK tech publications, including Trusted Reviews. He’s based in South Florida, USA. …
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Why trust our journalism?
Founded in 2003, Trusted Reviews exists to give our readers thorough, unbiased and independent advice on what to buy.
Today, we have millions of users a month from around the world, and assess more than 1,000 products a year.
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
