NFC Technology

[Jonamleonel]

Hello, I have a question: Is the NFC technology in the iPhone always active, even if the Wallet app is not in use? I mean, is it always emitting RF radiation to read/write?

[victor laraison]

hi JonamLeonel, 

Yes, NFC RF is always active on iPhone. Even if wallet App is not in use. 
This allows to handle NFC background reading mode : the system scans for and reads NFC data without requiring users to scan tags using an app. 
Hope it clarifies.

br,

[Jonamleonel]

Is it always emitting electromagnetic waves/RF ? Is it dangerous for people, many people uses its phones in the pants pockets 

[Peter BENSCH]

Well, you may need to ask Apple about the exact circumstances when and how NFC is active.

By “dangerous for people” do you mean a health risk or a risk to security or finances?

Regards
/Peter

[Ulysses HERNIOSUS · Accepted solution]

Hello Jonamleonel,

I think you need to differentiate two scenarios:

1. Phone acting as reader writer (poller) to find external cards. In this mode it is periodically emitting pulses to find NFC tags. Constant Carrier is only entered during communication with a card. Typically this polling (also background polling on iPhone) is only entered when the phone is unlocked (on iPhones also when screen is locked but on). To my knowledge no phone is polling in screen-off state.
2. When talking about wallet it means phone acting as card. In this mode the phone is by its own not emitting any field. Only when providing an answer to an external NFC field modulated command it will for a short time turn on an own field (Active Load Modulation as opposed to NFC cards which are doing Passive Load Modulation). This field emission is pretty much neglectable. This NFC activity is also active when the phone is in Screen Off state.

About health effects: Due to the low frequency and the low power the consensus is that there is no risk here (even if it would be Constant Carrier.) Constant Carrier is typically avoided to save power.

BR, Ulysses

[Jonamleonel]

Safe for the body ?

[Peter BENSCH]

When it comes to health, you should compare the radiation power emitted by smartphones with the different wireless bands. With GSM/LTE/5G we are talking about 2W transmission power, with NFC about milliwatts. If you're really worried about this, you should switch off your smartphone completely, shouldn't you?

[Jonamleonel]

Even if iPhone wallet app is deleting? The iPhone is emitting NFC radiation pulses ?

[Ulysses HERNIOSUS]

Hi,

don't know if you can even delete the wallet app. Even if so I would expect the background scanning service to be still operational.

Regards, Ulysses