Contact suddenly has emergency contact status

Today I was about to place a call to a contact when I noticed they have emergency contact status. See attached photo. Says emergency contact and there’s a red asterisk.


I never set up emergency contacts. Does anyone know how this can happen on its own? Is it a known issue or perhaps virus?


iOS 18.7.1. Standard iPhone 14 not jailbroken.


Thanks in advance

Posted on Oct 27, 2025 11:56 PM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Oct 28, 2025 7:42 AM

LeLocker wrote:

Thanks but do you know if there’s another way it was added? I don’t recall setting up medical id. My concern is if it may be a virus either.

Unless your iPhone is jailbroken, there are NO KNOWN viruses for iPhone. It would hardly seem worthwhile, even if there was a known virus for one to add Emergency Contact status to a contact. While can't tell you how this happened (it could have been nothing more nefarious than you accidentally tapping Emergency Contact on their card), LD150 provided a link which explains how to add an emergency contact, which you can use to remove their emergency contact status if you want.

3 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Oct 28, 2025 7:42 AM in response to LeLocker

LeLocker wrote:

Thanks but do you know if there’s another way it was added? I don’t recall setting up medical id. My concern is if it may be a virus either.

Unless your iPhone is jailbroken, there are NO KNOWN viruses for iPhone. It would hardly seem worthwhile, even if there was a known virus for one to add Emergency Contact status to a contact. While can't tell you how this happened (it could have been nothing more nefarious than you accidentally tapping Emergency Contact on their card), LD150 provided a link which explains how to add an emergency contact, which you can use to remove their emergency contact status if you want.

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Contact suddenly has emergency contact status

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