LinkedIn, like TikTok, copies data from the iOS clipboard, but says it's a mistake

LinkedIn, like TikTok, copies data from the iOS clipboard, but says it's a mistake

ZDNet reports that LinkedIn, like TikTok, has admitted to regularly accessing data temporarily held on the clipboards of unsuspecting iOS users.

The clipboard copying was discovered by a user trying out the beta version of iOS 14 and appears to be an issue in the social network's iPhone and iPad apps.

A new privacy feature in the iOS 14 beta notifies users when an app or service accesses text on the clipboard.

Last week we reported that TikTok apparently had access to the iOS clipboard.

The Chinese viral video sensation was also accused of privacy concerns earlier this year, but at the time its parent company ByteDance denied allegations by security researchers.

The iOS clipboard can be read by any app, which is exactly how the clipboard is supposed to work.

Nevertheless, it creates privacy risks, according to two researchers who published a study in March. Their research paper listed dozens of apps that were found to be copying data from the iOS clipboard, including The New York Times, CBS News, Bejeweled, Accuweather, and Overstock.com.

More and more companies now seem to be doing the same. Donald Morton, CEO and founder of Urspace, a Los Angeles-based job portfolio site, wrote on Twitter yesterday (June 2) that he was using an iPad Pro and received a notification that LinkedIn had copied data from the clipboard of his MacBook Pro

"LinkedIn is copying the contents of my clipboard every time I hit a key, and with IOS 14, users can see notifications for each paste," Morton tweeted. "I use an IPad Pro and copy from the clipboard on my MacBook Pro. tik tok (sic) was just called for this very reason."

Morton said he saw the Reddit app doing the same thing on his iPad. (UPDATE: Reddit told The Verge that they are fixing the app to prevent this from happening.)

A LinkedIn spokesperson told ZDNet that the behavior was the result of a bug and not a planned feature of the iOS app.

Erran Berger, LinkedIn's vice president of consumer product engineering, responded to Morton on Twitter, promising that the company would fix the bug.

"We have determined that it is caused by a code path that only does an equals sign check between the clipboard contents and what is currently typed in the text box," Berger tweeted. 'The clipboard content is neither saved nor sent. Will follow up as soon as a fix is implemented in our app.

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