TikTok Caught Accessing iOS Users’ Clipboards, Promises They Will Stop

Apps do many things in the background that we might non necessarily be aware of, which is why companies similar Apple tree and Google have built in permissions into apps where developers volition need to ask for permission in guild to access certain features of our phones, like photos, cameras, microphone, and and then on.

A good case would be TikTok, in which it appears that users who recently installed the iOS xiv preview on their iPhones were discovering that TikTok was accessing their clipboard more than often than they should, leading to privacy concerns. For those unfamiliar, one of the privacy features congenital into iOS xiv will alert users whenever an app reads your device's clipboard. This is how users were discovering that TikTok was often accessing their clipboards.

In a statement made to The Telegraph, TikTok said that this was done non equally an invasion of the user'due south privacy, but information technology was supposed to be used every bit an anti-spam feature. "For TikTok, this was triggered past a feature designed to identify repetitive, spammy behavior. We have already submitted an updated version of the app to the App Store removing the anti-spam characteristic to eliminate whatsoever potential confusion."

Okay so TikTok is grabbing the contents of my clipboard every 1-3 keystrokes. iOS 14 is snitching on information technology with the new paste notification pic.twitter.com/OSXP43t5SZ

— Jeremy Burge (@jeremyburge) June 24, 2020

Interestingly plenty, this isn't the first fourth dimension TikTok was caught doing so. A report from March revealed that many apps, such as TikTok, were quietly accessing their users' clipboards. The company stated dorsum then that they would be ending the exercise, but it is clear that based on this discovery that they were standing to do then months after.

Filed in . Read more than about Apps, iOS, Ios fourteen, Privacy, Social Striking and Tiktok. Source: telegraph