Earlier this year, developers Talal Haj Bakry and Tommy Mysk revealed that many iPhone and iPad apps quietly access the clipboard, which is where text that has been copied and pasted is temporarily stored. Given that users may have sensitive information copied to the clipboard, such as passwords, this could pose privacy and security concerns.
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Fortunately, it appears that Apple is making a change to provide users with more transparency. As demonstrated by Mysk, the first developer beta of iOS 14 notifies users when an app or widget pastes text from the clipboard.
These clipboard notifications are one of many privacy-focused changes introduced in iOS 14, with others including an indicator whenever an app is using your device's microphone or camera, as well as a new setting that lets you choose to share your approximate location, rather than your precise location, with an app.
Looks like @apple fixed the clipboard privacy issue we highlighted earlier this year. Apple said it wasn’t an issue, but surprisingly they fixed it in #iOS14 the exact way we recommended in our article.
A notification is shown every time an app or widget reads the clipboard
👇 pic.twitter.com/o6vZzQqO8a — Mysk (@mysk_co) June 22, 2020
Installing the iOS 14 beta currently requires an Apple Developer Program membership, which costs $99 per year, but a free public beta will be rolled out next month. The software update will be released to all users with an iPhone 6s or newer in the fall.
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Top Rated Comments
Telling me an app is being naughty is good - but preventing them from being able to be naughty in the first place is better, surely?
There might be other workflows that benefit from reading the clipboard.
Is it worth losing those workflows for the sake of privacy and security? Maybe, not sure. But there are workflows that benefit from it.
[EDIT: just re-read your post. I agree, it should be an opt-in dialog that you allow on a per-app basis, like with location tracking.]
I don’t want them seeing how often I copy corrected ways to spell words.
this is to my understanding on how validation code and OTP works.