Apple iPhone's Famous AirDrop Feature Cracked By China: Report

The Beijing institute created a method to breach the encrypted device log of an iPhone, extracting sender numbers and emails of those sharing AirDrop content.

A Chinese government-backed entity has devised a technique to identify individuals using Apple iPhone's popular AirDrop feature, as part of broader efforts to curb undesirable content, as per Beijing authorities, the media has reported. The Beijing institute created a method to breach the encrypted device log of an iPhone, extracting sender numbers and emails of those sharing AirDrop content, as revealed by the city's judicial bureau in an online statement, news agency Bloomberg has reported.

The agency has further stated that police have identified several suspects using this approach, but did not disclose whether any arrests were made.

The statement highlighted an iPhone feature that activists worldwide have leveraged to spread their messages. Utilizing just a close-range Bluetooth connection, it was widely used by demonstrators to exchange pro-democracy slogans during the 2019 Hong Kong protests, according to the report.

“It improves the efficiency and accuracy of case-solving and prevents the spread of inappropriate remarks as well as potential bad influences,” the bureau was quoted as saying by the Bloomberg report.

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What Is Apple's Famous AirDrop Feature

AirDrop lets the quick exchange of files like images, documents or videos between Apple devices. Notably, the Cupertino-based tech giant has limited the feature on Chinese iPhones since 2022, after the service was used by protesters to spread images to fellow device owners.

Meanwhile, Apple has started paying affected users in the 'batterygate' case. The company, in 2020, had agreed to pay up to $500 million in order to settle a class action lawsuit in the US that accused it of 'secretly throttling' some iPhone models.

It opened a gateway for people who were a victim of this to submit their claims and as per their promise, the payments have started being credited into the accounts of those users from this month.