Police investigate cyber flashing crime as woman using Apple AirDrop on iPhone gets two penis images

POLICE are investigating what they term a new tech crime after a woman using Apple Airdrop on her iPhone was cyber flashed with explicit pictures.

Woman tells of creepy ‘cyber flashing’

A WOMAN may have been the first person to have ever been the victim of what police term a new crime, ‘cyber flashing’.

British Transport Police are investigating after 34-year-old Lorraine Crighton-Smith received two images of a stranger’s penis on her iPhone as she sat on a train in London.

“I had AirDrop switched on because I had been using it previously to send photos to another iPhone user — and a picture appeared on the screen of a man’s penis, which I was quite shocked by,” Ms Crighton-Smith told the BBC.

She declined the image but then received another similar picture, leading her to believe they were being sent by a person on the train.

“I felt violated, it was a very unpleasant thing to have forced upon my screen,” she said.

“What’s the next stage from sending a naked photograph to a stranger, what happens next, was he getting any sort of gratification from it?”

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AirDrop is an contact sharing device on Apple iPhones, iPads and Macs and can be open to messages from anyone.

Ms Crighton-Smith said that she uses her first name on AirDrop so the sender knew that he was sending his disgusting pictures to a woman.

BTP’s Superintendant Gill Murray said an incident involving AirDrop was new to the police and they have brought in the Cyber Crime Unit who will look into the case. She said it dealt with cases involving Bluetooth but an incident via Airdrop was “new to us”.

However she pointed out that because Ms Crighton-Smith did not accept the image it was not saved onto her phone so there will be little evidence to work with.

”Receiving an indecent image from someone you don’t know must be very distressing and something we would take very seriously. If it happens to you, our advice would be to remain calm, retain the image and report the matter to police as soon as possible,” Supt Murray said.

If you use AirDrop turn it off when not using it or keep it limited to ‘contacts only.’