Apple’s NameDrop is quite safe. Ignore the nonsensical warnings

Apple’s NameDrop sharing feature

On Monday, after a few days of nonsensical warnings from some police departments and media outlets, we published the article, “How to turn off NameDrop on your iPhone and Apple Watch,” in which we explained, “Consent is required for NameDrop to function. No rando on the street can bump into you for a few seconds and take your contact info.”

Shira Ovide for The Washington Post:
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Some police departments and news organizations have been warning people about what they say are safety risks of a new iPhone feature called NameDrop that you can use to share contact information wirelessly.

The truth: NameDrop is quite safe. The warnings about this technology are wildly exaggerated.

Chester Wisniewski, a digital security specialist at Sophos, called the warnings about NameDrop “hysteria” and “nonsense.”

So you shouldn’t worry about NameDrop. But you should worry that police and news organizations are failing you by sounding false alarms about technology…

NameDrop only works if your Apple device is within a few centimeters of another one… Each of the devices needs to be unlocked for NameDrop to work, and you have to pick which pieces of contact information you want to share… [I]t’s unlikely that you’ll share contact information without intending to.

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MacDailyNews Take: These overzealous police departments and drooling idiots in “news” organizations that are amplifying this hysterical nonsense should immediately issue clarifications and apologies.
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