Namedropping doesn’t require you knowing a famous person anymore. NameDrop is the name of the new Apple feature available on Iphone iOS 17.1 and WatchOS 10.1 - that basically means the most up-to-date versions.
Launched on October 25th, the new feature is part of the Airdrop function. It now allows users to share contact information quickly and seamlessly. Forget about physical business cards lost at the bottom of your bag or this one note in your phone’s folder that you can’t find.
While it seems fairly harmless, this new feature has been raising concerns about how easy it has become to gain access to private information. Law enforcement agencies across the country have issued warnings about digital safety and safeguarding private information.
Kendra Walther, USC Associate Professor of the Information Technology Practice, thinks that we should proceed with caution.
Kendra Walther: “I think overall, it could be helpful using NameDrop in the way Apple has introduced it, but there might be some concerns about the default settings and privacy concerns around that.”
In Pennsylvania, the Jefferson Hills Police Department shared a Facebook post where they addressed parents to encourage them to “change these settings after the update on your children’s phones.”
Mykalah King, a freshman studying Psychology, opens up about how it could invade the users’ privacy.
Mykalah King: “I think that everyone has their own privacy preferences, I think that I dont want not knowing where my phone number is going around and people are sending it to people”
So, how does the feature actually work? To share information with another compatible Iphone, all you have to do is bring the two devices near each other.
If you want to disable the NameDrop function, you simply need to head to your phone’s settings, select the AirDrop tab, and then toggle the “Bringing Devices Together” option off.
Apple explains privacy is one of their leading values: “Privacy is a fundamental human right. It’s also one of our core values. Which is why we design our products and services to protect it. That’s the kind of innovation we believe in,” Apple says on their webpage.
Kendra Walther: “I’m assuming that most of the contact information that would be shared would be names and phone numbers, right? In the olden days, these used to be published in phonebooks and you could opt out, but the default was to opt in and so as long as the individual has control over what’s received and what they are sending to somebody else, I’m not too concerned about that level of data privacy.”
The default mode was turned on. However, to share your contact information you need to hit the “share” button that pops up asking for approval to transfer contact information.
But a bigger concern is emerging from the ever-advancing technology - and it’s the takeover of A.I., as Barrett Koster, Senior Lecturer in Information Technology at the Viterbi School of Engineering, says.
Barrett Koster: ”I generally turn everything off, I’m old school. I don’t like it doing stuff without my doing it. So this particular feature I’m not worried about. AI in general... Oh you wanted this, you wanted that, maybe not...”
For Annenberg Media, I’m Thomas Legrand.