Police Warning Missouri Parents About Recent Risky iPhone Update

If you and/or your children have an iPhone or any Apple device that they use in public, you need to know about a recent update that police are warning Missouri parents about that could compromise their safety.

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The update you need to check your Apple devices for is 17.1. Yahoo News shared details of a privacy feature that is turned on by default. I found it on my iPhone and it looks like this. It's under the AirDrop settings and is called "Bringing Devices Together". It could allow you and/or your children's contact information to be shared with strangers nearby.

The reports are correct. This feature which I did not choose to enable was on by default. What you need to do is make sure you turn this feature off.

Here a warning from the Chesterfield, Missouri police about this iPhone update.

It's not quite as bad as it sounds though. One police department in Massachusetts mentioned that it just offers the user the opportunity to share info, but doesn't do it automatically.

I still have big time privacy concerns with this. As a certified tech myself, I never want my children to have a situation where they have to make a decision if they're going to accept a friend request or info share from someone they don't know. My kids tend to be sweet and naive and trusting. That's why features like the one in this iPhone update make me unhappy that companies enable it without asking the user first.

Bad Apple.