Two-factor authentication can’t help much when a scammer talks the account owner into making the payment. A new iOS 27 feature called Impersonation Risk Detection is Apple’s attempt to catch that moment, and it ships turned off.
The feature “analyzes information about your device and Apple Account to help detect signs of an active scam,” according to Apple’s support page. When someone using a supported app tries something risky, such as making a payment or changing a password, the app can ask for a risk assessment. Apple returns one of three levels: unknown, medium or high. The app gets only that level, not the information behind it, and decides what to do next, whether that’s asking for identity verification, adding a delay or showing a warning.
Apple is careful about what the lowest rating means. An “unknown” result means no evidence of suspicious activity was found, which “doesn’t mean that the action was confirmed as safe,” the support page says. Apple also doesn’t determine or control what the app does with the score.
How to turn it on
As 9to5Mac noted, the setting lives in Settings > Privacy & Security > Impersonation Risk Detection, where users switch on “Share with App Developers.” Some users may need to sign in to the App Store with their Apple Account first. The same screen lists which apps have requested a risk assessment and why, and lets users adjust each app’s access.
Apple built in a guard against scammers who know about the feature. “If someone directs you to turn this feature off, you might be the victim of a scam,” the company says, and changes to the setting can take up to 24 hours to take effect.
The catch is reach. The feature works on iOS 27 and iPadOS 27, but only inside apps that adopt it, and Apple hasn’t published a list of supported apps. Banks and payment apps would be the obvious early adopters.
The tool adds to Apple’s existing fraud work at the App Store level, where the company says it prevented more than $9 billion in fraudulent transactions over five years, including more than $2 billion in 2024.
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