Drop AirDrops, cut threats

It’s the ‘‘electronic equivalent of passing notes in class’’ but unrestricted data sharing on phones can lead to harm, a cybersecurity expert has warned after a Porirua high school was put into lockdown following a threat.

Aotea College initially went into lockdown, then was evacuated after a student received a digital threat and raised the alarm at mid-morning on Wednesday.

Cybersecurity expert Daniel Ayers said threats made to schools were not new but using a data sharing app such as AirDrop created new avenues for antisocial behaviour. ‘‘It can be used for bullying, it can be used for sexual harassment.’’

Ayers said there was a range of information police could use to possibly identify the person involved, especially as AirDrop involved physical proximity.

‘‘The chances that somebody who is sending nasty or threatening AirDrops, will be found is much greater . . . because they have to be close by.’’

To avoid ‘‘unwanted’’ messages, he suggested parents encourage children to limit their AirDrop share settings to contacts, as opposed to everyone, or to turn them off entirely.

Principal Kate Gainsford said students were holding up ‘‘pretty well’’ after the lockdown and most had returned to school, with exams ‘‘continuing as per usual’’.

‘‘It’s good to have everybody back,’’ she said, adding they were a ‘‘very resilient bunch’’. She was especially impressed by the ‘‘phenomenal’’ students who chose to sit their NCEA examinations that afternoon at other nearby schools like Mana College, Porirua College and Whitby Collegiate.

‘‘We had students here who could have said ‘I won’t sit the exam’. But they didn’t, they wanted to sit their exams.’’

Where examinations could not take place, the Qualifications Authority would use a derived grade process to minimise disadvantages to students.

Students who had been sitting their NCEA exams on the Wednesday morning would be able to receive a derived grade.

Gainsford said students returning to the routine of a normal school day would help reduce the impact of events, which could be traumatic. Counselling support was also being provided and community constables had visited the school as reassurance.

She said the school had no further detail about who might have sent the threat. Police were continuing to investigate.