iOS 14 is only in the developer beta, but it already exposes how often some apps check users’ clipboards. The last app to be tested for this practice is Reddit, but the company says an upcoming update will remove the code in question.
One of the new privacy features in iOS 14 is a banner alert that appears when an app is pasting from the clipboard and therefore can read the contents of a clipboard. A video shared on Twitter by Don Morton shows that the Reddit app triggers this notification every time the keyboard is pressed in the app.
In a statement to The edge, a Reddit spokesperson explained that this is due to a code path that checks URLs and then suggests a post title. The company emphasized that the contents of the carton are not stored or shipped elsewhere, and that an update due July 14 will remove the code entirely:
“We trace it back to a code path in the post composer that checks the URLs on the dashboard and then suggests a post title based on the content of the URL text,” a Reddit spokesperson wrote in an email to The Verge. . “We do not store or ship the contents of the carton. We removed this code and released the fix on July 14. “
However, as explained above, there is a new API available to developers that will help reduce the number of times a clipboard paste notification is displayed. This means that an application could check if the clipboard searches for text that looks like a URL.
If a URL is found, the app could copy the content and perform whatever tasks were necessary, such as generating a post title like on Reddit. This would still trigger the iOS 14 notification, but if the test were fake and the dashboard doesn’t contain a URL, the app would be unable to do anything and prevent triggering endless notifications on the clipboard.
This API will help developers improve their application experience while preserving functionality and protecting privacy. What remains to be seen is which applications will adopt the API versus which ones will simply avoid accessing the clipboard. You can learn more in Don Morton’s full blog post here.
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