Cyberflashing. Is it about to take over from ‘sexting’ as the new crime of sex pests
Must admit it’s a new one on me too. But it seems the police are investigating their first case of cyber flashing after a woman on a train complained of seeing unsolicited pictures of a man’s penis on her Apple iPhone while travelling by train in South London.
Apparently Lorraine Crighton-Smith, 34, pictured above, saw the pictures because she had left Apple’s Airdrop system turned on to ‘Everyone’ to receive images from someone else.
“I declined the image, instinctively, and another image appeared, at which [point] I realised someone nearby must be sending them, and that concerned me. I felt violated, it was a very unpleasant thing to have forced upon my screen,” Lorraine told Victoria Derbyshire’s BBC programme today.
Although Apple’s Airdrop system, which lets you send images to other Apple devices easily via Bluetooth and WiFi, has a default position of ‘Contacts’ only, this can be changed.
And if you change it to ‘Everyone’ – as Ms Crighton-Smith had innocently done – it means that anyone can send you unsolicited images, including pervs on a train carriage it seems.
