Strangers Are AirDropping Your Kids — Here’s What That Means 2024
There’s a whole new trend taking over public spaces that is strangers are airdropping your kids. Whether it is on crowded trains, schools, busy shopping centers, and airports you suddenly get a notification that someone wants to AirDrop you an image. You will get the preview of the image with the option to accept or decline it. If you accept, it automatically saves to the camera roll of your phone. The idea that anybody could send you a picture of virtually anything without your permission is itself frightening. Kids can use this feature to prank their friends and they may get exploited by strangers who want to send them inappropriate files of their own.
What Does AirDropping Mean?
Air Dropping is a feature by which you can send and receive an image to anyone all you need is an iOS device like an iPhone, iPad, or Mac computer, and along with that, it needs to have both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth turned on. The device that you are using must set to “discoverable” by other users. Then, you simply select a photo and choose to share it via AirDrop to anyone you want. Here are some other facts regarding Airdropping:
- Anyone else in the 15-foot radius who has Airdrop enabled to receive your file easily. You can see the names of their devices on your screen, and all you have to do is select who you want to send the file to and then send it.
- When kids get together, AirDropping can become common. It is instant, anonymous and 100% irreversible so if you once send an image you can’t get it back.
- It becomes a sort of game, for kids with kids changing the names of their phones to something random or funny so no one can tell who’s sending what. Such an element of surprise and the thrill of sending something silly or ridiculous can be addictive.
Why Airdropping Is Dangerous?
Kids also use Airdrop features as a workaround for sending images or files that may violate the terms of service of various social media platforms like Instagram or Snapchat. Many times, mages that may get automatically flagged as inappropriate can glide through unfettered with AirDrop. You can find that AirDrops are harmless jokes or memes, there’s always the chance that someone could send you something obscene, disturbing, or inappropriate. So, it can be sometimes dangerous for the kids. Here are the reasons which show how Airdropping is dangerous:
- Besides the emotional effects of receiving unwanted explicit images, AirDropping also poses privacy risks.It may be technically an anonymous activity, but people can identify their targets by AirDropping a disturbing image and looking around for people’s reactions.
- There are also many legal ramifications if your children accepts a pornographic image, as it will automatically save to their camera roll and become one of their saved photos which are not at all safe for them.
- This is a problematic situation for children because they could conceivably save something automatically without even knowing what it is.
How Can You Safeguard Children From Airdropping?
The best thing that all parents can do is talk to kids about AirDropping and the dangers it poses. You can adjust the settings of your children’s phone so that they are unable to receive absolutely no AirDrops or they are able to receive only from their contacts. If you decide not to disable AirDrop, your children turns it back on when they’re away from home. Therefore, there are certain steps that you have to follow to safeguard children:
- You should use a monitoring app that helps you to protect kids who send and receive AirDrops by monitoring images saved to the camera roll, irrespective of the face that it’s an image they’re sharing with people or one they’ve recently received from a stranger.
- Parents should explain the problems that a children can face from this app and prevent them from using it. But if you find that the children have already disabled it then still there are a number of things that you can do like you can explain to them the dangers of using it.
How iKeyMonitor Is Helpful In Safeguarding Children From Airdropping?
In this digital era, there are numerous online dangers such as Airdropping. Children tend to use it without understanding the consequences. It is difficult to always spy on them directly because that can irritate them so you must use a monitoring app like iKeyMonitor which will enable you to get access to all their online activities and thus, you can protect them from anything inappropriate situation. Here are some features of the iKeyMonitor which helps in protecting children from consequences of airdropping:
- You can check all the images that are sent or received through airdropping. In case you find anything problematic, you can easily take action to protect them.
- By using the spy app, you are able to track the contact lists on their contact book and social chat apps.
- It enables you to access the text messages both incoming and outgoing so that you can find out the contacts with whom your children is communicating the most or at least are in touch.
- You can monitor their online activities remotely whenever you want irrespective of your location.
Therefore, you must make use of monitoring apps such as iKeyMonitor which will enable you to have a check on the activities of your children on various online platforms. Keeping a check or airdropping is needed specifically when any strangers send inappropriate images or your children sends such images to them. This will help you to protect your kids from all sorts of hazards that it can bring with it.
Tags: AirDrop to anyone, airdropping, AirDropping also poses privacy risks, consequences of airdropping
Category: Learning & How to, Parental Control Tips
