LinkedIn, much like TikTok, could have been used to spy on you
The new privacy feature on the iOS14 operating system by Apple, set to be officially released in the fall, revealed that the Microsoft app LinkedIn gathered information from the app's clipboard.
By TOBIAS SIEGALLinkedIn headquarters in Mountain View, California.(photo credit: WIKIPEDIA COMMONS)
The new iPhone operating system revealed a new privacy flaw in the LinkedIn app, a social network specifically designed for career and professional networking, according to a report by the ZDNet business technology online publication, owned by CNET Networks, on Friday.The new privacy feature on the iOS14 operating system by Apple, set to be officially released in the fall, revealed that the Microsoft app LinkedIn gathered information from the app's clipboard, a feature that saves all information copied by the user.The iOS14 operating system, currently in a limited beta and available only to developers, notifies the user when an app copies something, either from a different app or from the device itself.Last month it was revealed that the Chinese app TikTok had used the same information from the clipboard feature and basically saved extensive information on all of its users. The company claimed that the feature was part of a fraud detection mechanism and that there was no intention of stealing the information, but nevertheless promised to remove the feature.The incident caused people to identify more cases of privacy violations in popular apps and to be more cautious when choosing what app to trust.While that revelation didn't come as a huge surprise to most, considering the reputation that TikTok has regarding user privacy, the fact that the same mechanism operates in the Microsoft app LinkedIn and frequently collects information on users, caused many a feeling of unease.According to ZDNet, the first to break the story, a LinkedIn spokesperson claimed that the issues was due to a bug, and not an intentional act.VP Engineering of Consumer Products at LinkedIn, Erran Berger, also addressed the incident on Twitter, saying "We've traced this to a code path that only does an equality check between the clipboard contents and the currently typed content in a text box." While he didn't explain why this kind of behavior was necessary to begin with, Berger added that "We don't store or transmit the clipboard contents. We will follow up once the fix is live in our app."
