LinkedIn Sued for Reading Universal Clipboard Data

Microsoft's LinkedIn was sued yesterday for allegedly reading and diverting users' private information using the iOS clipboard.

The lawsuit filed in San Francisco federal court states that LinkedIn "secretly" read the clipboard "a lot," without notifying the user, according to Reuters. The complaint also claims that LinkedIn has been gathering clipboard information from nearby Apple devices through the Universal Clipboard feature, and has been circumventing Apple's Universal Clipboard timeout.

The lawsuit attempts to certify the complaint as class action based on alleged violation of the law or social norms, under California laws. Last week, LinkedIn claimed that the clipboard copying behavior is a bug and is not an intended operation. A VP at LinkedIn commented that the contents of the clipboard are not stored or transmitted, and that a fix for the issue will soon be available.

iOS 14 and iPadOS 14 include a new privacy banner feature that informs users when an app pastes from the clipboard. Other apps, such as TikTok, Twitter, Starbucks, Overstock, AccuWeather, and more, have also been caught snooping on user clipboards for no clear reason, but this is the first legal case of its kind related to clipboard spying.