Security News > 2020 > June > iOS 14 flags TikTok, 53 other apps spying on iPhone clipboards
In March, researchers Talal Haj Bakry and Tommy Mysk revealed that Android and iOS apps - including the mind-bogglingly popular, China-owned, video-sharing/often in privacy hot water TikTok - could silently, automatically read anything you copy into your mobile device's clipboard.
Mysk said that the ability for apps to read content of off nearby devices means that an app on an iPhone could possibly read sensitive data on the clipboards of other connected iOS devices, be they cryptocurrency addresses, passwords, or email messages, even if the iOS apps are running on a separate device.
While there are good reasons for some apps to access your clipboard, the apps that Mysk and Bakry found have no clear reason to do so.
A video, posted on 23 June, had been viewed by over 118,000 people as of Tuesday, 30th June and demonstrates apps getting flagged by iOS 14 as they read content.
Android allowed apps running in the background to read the clipboard up until Version 10, as opposed to iOS apps, which can do so only when they're active, as in, running in the foreground.