Women on trains face cyber-flash menace

The number of women being sent sexually explicit images by strangers on trains is going “largely unreported” – despite a spike in incidents, new data has revealed.

Reports of cyber-flashing to British Transport Police (BTP) have almost doubled in a year, although campaigners say the number of women affected “will almost certainly be much higher”.

Despite the rise there was only one arrest in 2019, according to newly-obtained data.

Cyber-flashing is when a person is sent an unsolicited sexual image on their device by a stranger nearby through Airdrop, a file-sharing function on iphones.

Victims – often targeted on trains due to the technology’s short range – said it caused them to feel fearful on public transport.

Figures obtained by PA through a Freedom of Information (FOI) request show that incidents more than doubled year-on-year in 2016, 2017 and 2018.

In 2019, there were 66 reports of cyber-flashing – almost double 34 reports in 2018, and a large jump since 2016, when three incidents were reported.

Although numbers have leapt year-on-year, police believe it is still going under-reported due to victims believing the incident is “not serious enough” to speak to officers.

The data, from England, Scotland and Wales, shows there was only one arrest in connection with cyber-flashing made by BTP last year, which records incidents under their malicious communications act.

The force says the majority of incidents result in the failure to identify a suspect, due to difficulty in tracing the perpetrator.

If a person’s Airdrop settings are set to “Everyone”, it means someone outside of their contacts list can request to send them a file.

This can be done anonymously, as all that is shown on the receiving device is a preview of the picture and the name of the iphone sending the file.

In 2019, where the victim’s gender was recorded by the force, the majority of those targeted (88%) were women.

More than half (57%) of those whose ages were taken by officers were aged between 21 and 30.