The Weather Network has disclosed that its app read contents of users’ clipboards, and notes that it has now removed the functionality from its app.
“In a recent beta software release by Apple, it has been identified that our application could read the contents of the operating system’s clipboard,” the company said in a statement.
The Weather Network notes that clipboard access is part of a diagnostics functionality that was present in its app to help developers troubleshoot user issues on a user initiated basis if required.
“Given the sensitivity around our user information and privacy we have removed the code and functionality from our app and reached out to Apple for their best practices for troubleshooting moving forward.”
It states that no personally identifiable information was ever copied, and any data gathered was a random ID to aid in troubleshooting and did not use the device’s unique identifier identifier.
As part of its emphasis on privacy in iOS 14, Apple has added a banner alert that tells users when an app is reading from their clipboard, which is why app violations are starting to get reported by users.
Several companies, including LinkedIn and Reddit, have vowed to fix their practices after the iOS feature revealed that their apps were reading clipboard data.
Source: The Weather Network
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