Normal day, that was. As always, Lorraine Crighton-Smith took
a train to go to her work. However, something unusual happened which left her
shocked and violated.
The 34-year-old lady was holding her phone in the train as
she thinking of sending message. But, two messages back to back arrived on her
phone. The messages contained images pictures of an unknown man's penis on her
phone via Apple's Airdrop sharing function.
Crighton-Smith told BBC, "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.”
Soon after that, she reported it to the British Transport
Police (BTP).
As per the report published in BBC, the police are
now investigating a "new" crime of cyber-flashing after the incident.
Since, Crighton-Smith declined the message, the BTP said
that there was no technological evidence for them to work with and recorded it
as intelligence.
"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. I was also worried about who else might have been a
recipient, it might have been a child, someone more vulnerable than me,” she
told BBC.
According to the report, Supt Gill Murray said this
particular crime was new to her force and urged people to report any other
incidents.
Murray said the force had dealt with cases involving
Bluetooth but an incident via Airdrop was "new to us".
"We have a dedicated Cyber Crime Unit who can analyze
mobile phones and track data transfers back to suspects' devices. By linking
this to physical evidence, such as CCTV footage or witness statements, we can
catch offenders and bring them to justice through the courts,” Murray added.