Cyberflashing: Change these settings to protect your smartphone

All smartphones can be used to send photos to other phones at close range. Some people misuse this to harass others with photos, however – a process known as cyberflashing. — Photo: Fabian Sommer/dpa

BERLIN: Airdrop on iPhones and Quick Share on Android phones are useful features for wirelessly exchanging photos, videos, and documents between devices.

However, these very features have been abused in recent years in a process known as cyberflashing - when someone sends obscene unsolicited photos or videos to your phone.

To digitally protect yourself in public spaces, you'll need to choose more restrictive settings. If you don't want to send or receive files at all, it's best to turn these features off completely.

Apple devices: On the iPhone, the quickest way to turn the feature off is by using the Control Center, which you can open by swiping down from the top right corner of the screen.

Then press the network settings card at the top left, tap the “Airdrop” button and activate “Receiving Off.” You can also turn it on and off using Settings > General > AirDrop.

With Airdrop turned on the options are “Contacts Only” or, if you want to exchange data with a non-contact, “Everyone for 10 Minutes.” Using the latter setting, Airdrop switches back to “Contacts Only” after ten minutes.

Android devices: Quick Share, the Android version of the feature and formerly known as Nearby Share, works in a similar way. Swipe down from the top edge of the display to open Quick Settings. Tap Quick Share and then tap Edit (the pencil icon). You can also access the feature settings using the Quick Share button.

The sharing options you can choose are “Your Devices,” “Contacts,” and “Everyone.” “Contacts” is the recommended option: the device is only visible to nearby contacts when the screen is switched on and unlocked.

For brief exchanges with non-contacts, choose “Everyone > Only for 10 minutes.” After that period the setting will automatically return to your previous selection.

Unfortunately, Airdrop and Quick Share aren’t compatible with each other. They only work between smartphones using the same operating system (iOS or Android). – dpa