LinkedIn and Reddit avoid copying iPhone Clipboard

Reddit and LinkedIn are modifying their apps to help avoid them from viewing the clipboard of the Apple iPhone. Users are notified in a developer trial of the latest update to the phone’s operating system, iOS 14, whenever an app accesses the copied text of the device. The notification exposed frequent clipboard scanning by apps that many users thought shouldn’t be required to do so.

By changing their software in the face of scrutiny, the two companies imitate TikTok. A senior exec at LinkedIn tweeted that it had now disabled the code that allowed this, while Reddit said it would release a patch next week.

Meanwhile, Erran Berger, vice president of digital marketing at LinkedIn, responded to a tweet from someone who found that the software was calling for “single keystroke” to look at the clipboard Mr Berger replied that the app carried out a “equality check” to see whether what was on the clipboard was the same as what was written on the app, but did not elaborate on that.

Apple said it did not believe it was a threat at the time.

There are valid explanations that an app wants clipboard access-for example, to exchange a website address with a messaging channel, or to snatch a password from a password manager and paste it into a password-protected application.