AirDrop sexual harassment is now a thing. Strangers sending unwanted pictures, videos, or documents to people they don’t know is becoming more common.
If you use an iPhone, you may know what AirDrop is. It’s a really useful default application that allows for the sharing of files super quickly. The technology uses bluetooth + wifi to quickly and easily transfer pictures, videos, or documents to another person’s phone, tablet, or computer.
Apple is taking some heat right now though, because of a reported issue with the file sharing application. There is a scary new problem you have to worry about though. Since this application designed to be so fast and easy, there are now reported instances of sexual harassment through it.
How to prevent this from happening
There’s a setting inside AirDrop that you may not have noticed, but it’s pretty important. You can either set AirDrop to off, contacts only, or everyone. The problem of strangers being able to send things to you comes when you set it to “everyone”. So you should make sure to set it to contacts only, or if you never use the feature, just set it to off.
You can do this by going to your Settings > General > AirDrop > and make sure “contacts only” is selected. That’s it!
Should Apple Change AirDrop?
The ease of use of AirDrop, especially for content creators like myself, is a big deal. And I don’t think Apple is in the wrong at all here.
AirDrop is easy to use and easy to be used privately. All you have to do is either keep it off until you want to use it, or just use the contacts only setting. So no, Apple should not have to change anything. People should begin to take online privacy more seriously, and spend a few moments making sure their iPhone has proper privacy settings in place. If you’re wanting to learn how to beef up your phone’s privacy, check out this video.
[ Photo Credit: AntonioGuillem]