Oliver Haslam·

iOS 14 Exposes Apps Like TikTok Constantly Accessing User Clipboard

Ever since Apple released iOS 14 to developers on June 22 we’ve been hearing reports of a new feature that warns users whenever an app reads their clipboard. It makes sense in a ton of situations, but it turns out that there are some apps that are doing it with seemingly no reason at all, and TikTok is one of them.

Multiple people took to Twitter this week to share videos and screenshots of iOS 14 alerting them that TikTok read their clipboard, sometimes as often as every few keystrokes.

Why? TikTok told The Telegraph that it’s all about dealing with spam.

“Following the beta release of ‌iOS 14‌ on June 22, users saw notifications while using a number of popular apps.

“For TikTok, this was triggered by 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 feature to eliminate any potential confusion.

“TikTok is committed to protecting users’ privacy and being transparent about how our app works.”

An update has already been submitted to the App Store that prevents it from reading clipboards in this way. Interestingly however, TikTok hasn’t said whether the Android version of the app is doing the same thing. And if it does, will that also be getting an update to stop it?

https://twitter.com/jeremyburge/status/1275896482433040386

TikTok isn’t the only app caught doing this though. Several more apps, including those from huge companies like Starbucks, are doing something similar.

Apple will release a public iOS 14 beta next month with a final release available to everyone this fall. It’s safe to say we can expect much more noise to be made about this feature when everyone sees these alerts worldwide.

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