RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — A new iPhone feature is causing concern for local law enforcement agencies.
It’s called “NameDrop” and it allows users to share their contact information just by holding two devices together. Cliff Lent, president of local security consulting company M7Solutions, explained how it works.
“It is an automatically toggled-on feature, allowing people to share your digital data with another person if you have another iPhone in very close proximity, within centimeters or less than two inches,” Lent said.
The new feature is raising alarms for local law enforcement agencies, like the Prince George County Police Department, which posted a warning on its Facebook page urging parents to toggle the feature off completely.
“The concern about [it] has been that if a child has a phone that somebody could potentially eavesdrop without their knowledge, and take that data there, their photo, their phone, number, email, whatever they have listed on there, and potentially gather that information without their consent,” Lent said.
Lent believes the potential dangers associated with the feature are relatively low.
“There are greater risks out there involving cell phones, and third-party apps and social media that are of real, real concern, name drop, the risk of it is not zero, but it’s very low. And it’s not something that I would be overly concerned about as a parent,” Lent said.
He added it’s also pretty simple to turn the feature off. All users have to do is go to the iPhone’s general settings, click on “AirDrop”, and toggle it off next to “bringing devices together.”
“The whole NameDrop conversation and cell phone security and app security [are] important ones,” Lent said. “I would be looking more at the social media aspect of it and people pretending to be somebody that they’re not. And that’s how they social engineer, a fictitious account to target kids — and that happens on a fairly regular basis, unfortunately.”
