Apple is clamping down on AirDrop privacy settings for all its users with the iOS 16.2 update, after backlash its recent restrictions were impacting the feature’s use in China. In November, reports
AirDrop, which leverages Bluetooth Low Energy and peer-to-peer Wi-Fi, to instantly share files with one other while avoiding Chinese censors.
By leaving “Everyone” enabled, protestors and others had been able to easily receive files from anyone else, including those who were not already in their iPhone Contacts.
Users first noticed new restrictions on AirDrop in China had arrived with the release of the iOS 16.1.1 update. After the update, iOS would revert AirDrop’s privacy settings back to “Contacts Only” after just 10 minutes even if “Everyone” was previously selected. (A user would have to manually select the “Everyone” setting — it was not the default.)
Apple, whose ties to China run deep — it’s both a key customer base and a manufacturing base — was called out by some as being complicit in aiding the Communist Party. Others, however, had argued that leaving the feature open to “Everyone” indefinitely had always been a security and privacy risk — and one that should have never been permitted in the first place.