BATON ROUGE - Concern has been spreading online among some parents about a new iPhone feature that allows phones to exchange contact information with nearby devices. Fortunately, it's easy to disable.

The latest Apple iPhone update, IOS 17, automatically activates "NameDrop" after the phone's operating system updates.

NameDrop allows user to exchange contact information when phones are held next to each other.

The main concern from parents seemed to be that children might unknowingly share personal information with strangers. But that's not how it works.

Darek Jackson, senior manager at Evalv IT in Baton Rouge, said parents may be misinformed about what has to happen for information to be exchanged.

"I don't necessarily think that it's as easy as one might think because you actually have to accept the connection and then send the connection," Jackson said.

Each user must approve the exchange by pressing a button on their own phone. 

Jackson urged users to have a strong phone password on their phones to reduce the danger of hacking.

People who need to share contacts frequently may appreciate the feature. Others can turn it off.

To do so, simply go into your device's settings and click "general." From there, select "airdrop" and then "bringing devices together," and toggle it to "off."