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Siri is a digital assistant that’s designed to make your life easier. It can help you find information, set reminders and organize your calendar, and even make calls for you! Speaking into your phone is easier than typing, which makes it perfect for those of us who are constantly on the go.
Siri always suggests contacts because an iPhone can save the names of those who contact you. Besides, the information can be easily accessed from previous texts or emails. Therefore, when the same person contacts you again, you can see their names instead of their number.
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What Are Suggested Contacts On iPhone?
Suggested contacts on iPhone is a feature allowing a sender’s name to appear on emails, calls, and texts. This occurs even in circumstances where a sender was previously not known to the user. Moreover, Apple made this apparent through access to confidential messages.
This then makes contact management simpler on iPhones. Because of that, the incoming texts and phone calls are preceded by the word, maybe. And a text indicating Siri has spotted a new contact.
There is also an option of adding the contact to an address book. With just a few clicks, users can save the contact information.
Can Suggested Contacts Be Exploited
Suggested contacts can be exploited by those with ill motives. Like those who try pretending to be a bank. The person can call an iPhone user and ensure the caller’s identification shows a number.
And above all, convince them to give out their credentials via a texted link or a call. You can hand over caller identification by using the email signatures details in an email application. This can be so risky if your bank’s name is among the suggested contacts.
However, this can only work well If there is a conversation on both sides. That is between the hacker and the user. The hacker then sends a prank email related to a financial account.
The information also has the sender’s number in the email’s signature. The user then replies to it and the sender texts or calls the user via the initial phishing email. Suggested contacts will then display the hacker’s name.
Nevertheless, a caller identification can also be given up through a one-way chat through texts sent using an iMessage.
What Is the Impact of Exploiting Suggested Contacts
If a suggested contact is well manipulated by hackers, they can get sensitive information from you if you’re the victim. The attackers can call you and then ask for a confirmation of your phone banking pins. And the bank account information among others.
This is therefore known as voice phishing. And if you are a seller with a corporate mobile gadget, a call from attackers may be among lots of suggestions. Those calls you receive throughout the day can make you less cautious.
The hackers can also send you a message with phishing links. And since it may appear as if it is from your bank, you are likely to trust the sent link and even click on a persuading prank login page. This is for their bank and when you log in with their details, you’re directed to the hacker.
This is recognized as SMS phishing. And for the attacks to be effective, the hacker needs to do some research to realize more about your bank. Though such practices aren’t restricted to only banks, they can also be a payment service, mobile carrier, or insurance firm.
Why Does Siri Suggest Contacts?
Siri often suggests contacts because an iPhone saves the names of those who reached out to you before. This can either be through a message or an email. Thus, this signifies the iPhone is intelligent as it saves the details from text messages or emails you get.
It then connects it to different messages in the future. Like you may get a message from a friend and if you get a reply the next day, you can see a display of their name rather than the number. This implies your gadget has obtained sufficient details about the phone number.
And it assumes it recognizes the person who is contacting you. However, for privacy and safety purposes, it’ll suggest the given contact as maybe. And it’s not until you choose to add it to your contacts.
Moreover, the operating system searches your text messages and emails. And it uses the suggestions from them to know the person who is reaching out. However, what’s amazing is, all the details remain on your iPhone, and thus, your privacy gets protected.
And there isn’t any form of information sharing.
How Do You Make Siri Stop Suggesting Contacts?
There are steps you can follow to make Siri stop suggesting contacts. You can either choose to disable individual contact or the entire share sheet contacts. The following procedure is very helpful if you need to discard all the contact suggestions.
How to Remove the Entire Contact Suggestions
- You can start by opening the settings application.
- Then click on Siri and search.
- Below the Siri suggestion area, deactivate the switch near “suggestions when sharing”.
With that, you will be done as you won’t be able to see the contact suggestions in your iPhone’s apps. And in case you need them later on, you can repeat the procedure. You will have to activate the switch close to “suggestions when sharing.”
Ensure you upgrade your iPhone to iOS 14 or even higher before you begin the process. Take note that if you don’t do so, you will not be able to disable Siri contact suggestions on an iPhone. Moreover, there is a workaround that pertains to iOS fourteen and thirteen.
And it can eliminate the contact suggestions one after the other. To update the iPhone, you can proceed to the settings, then general, and software update. Click download and install.
The devices operating iOS thirteen do support iOS fourteen and you won’t experience any problem while upgrading.
How to Discard Individual Share Sheet Contact Suggestions
You can individually disable the contact suggestions instead of eliminating all of them. And to achieve that, you should erase the conversation thread which relates to the contacts you wish to remove. For instance, if you need to disable a contact from the share sheet, after a conversation you had in a messaging application.
When you erase the whole conversation, it will eliminate contact suggestions from the share sheet. Though, it implies you’ll lose the attachments and photos associated with the conversation. Therefore, you can do it if it is essential.
Still, you may consider saving any crucial attachments before you erase a chat thread. On WhatsApp, you can swipe a conversation to the right side, tap more and click delete chat. For the messages application, you can swipe it to the right and then click on the delete icon.
This will allow you to remove the strange contact suggestion. The ones you don’t need to appear in the share sheet. However, if you discard all the chat threads, you’ll in turn remove the whole strip of the contact suggestion.
Because this also pertains to iOS thirteen, you may consider this as a fairly cumbersome workaround. Mostly in case you are not interested in upgrading to the iOS fourteen. Moreover, if there are AirDrop contacts in the sheet, you will not be able to remove them separately.
You can only discard them when you stop the AirDrop. Though, it implies you will not be able to send or even receive anything over the AirDrop. To move forward, you can open the settings application, click screen time, content, and privacy restrictions.
Go on to the allowed apps and then deactivate the switch near the AirDrop. In case you have never used screen time, you’ll have to run through some splash screens so you can be able to fix it.
Conclusion
I hope you now know why Siri normally suggests contacts and how you can disable this feature. The best thing is, you can also choose to remove any undesirable contact suggestions separately. And if you do not need the entire thing, you can also go ahead and eliminate it.
So, ensure you choose what works best for you!