Illinois Police Warn iPhone Users About Dangers Of New Update

If you have an iPhone, you're probably aware of the new update that many people got over the Thanksgiving weekend. Police in Illinois and around the country are warning iPhone users and parents of the dangers of one of the new features that came with the update.

While the folks at Apple maybe didn't think about this being a harmful tool, police right here in the Quad Cities and throughout America immediately saw the major safety concern.

New iPhone Update

Last week, Apple released its new update, iOS 17. There is a plethora of new features that come with the new update which you can see here.

Amongst those features is an update on how you can share your contacts, videos, photos, and other content via AirDrop. The new way to use AirDrop is by holding the tops of both iPhones near each other and automatically, the phones become connected.

What's so wrong with that? Police departments have a major issue with this.

AirDrop Update Is Dangerous According to Police

Several police departments and law enforcement agencies across the country have an issue with the way to new AirDrop works. This is what the East Moline Police Department said over the weekend:

"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. To shut this off go to Settings, General, AirDrop, Bringing Devices Together. Change to "off"."

The East Moline Police Department also reminded parents to change these settings after the update on their children’s phones to keep them safe.

It makes a lot of sense for your child to have this feature turned off. If you're worried someone is going to take your contact information without you knowing it, make sure you turn it off too.

If you get a new iPhone for Christmas and don't want that feature turned on, save this article.