More nefarious keyboards may spy on what you type. Some keyboards will monitor your typing to give you predictive or personalized suggestions. Why a keyboard app needs access to the internet depends on its usage. As such, they aren’t able to send or receive any data from the company’s servers. Without full access, third-party keyboard apps aren’t allowed to use your iPhone’s cellular or Wi-Fi connection. Why do keyboard apps ask for Full Access?Īs for why most third-party keyboard apps ask for or require full access to function, it largely comes down to internet connectivity. And in 2017, Ai.Type suffered a data breach that exposed nearly 31 million user records. In 2016, SwiftKey users noticed other people’s emails populating their apps. To be clear, the majority of keyboard apps aren’t setting out to collect and use this data in a nefarious way.īut if their policy is to collect everything you type and store it on their servers, it’s inevitable that something confidential or sensitive will be caught along with everything else.Īnd even if they aren’t using that data in a nefarious way, there’s still a chance that it would be leaked inadvertently. Credit card numbers, addresses, social security numbers, etc. That may sound rather innocuous until you realize just how many sensitive things you type on a daily basis.

That includes text that you’ve written before you enabled full access. When you grant a keyboard full access in iOS or iPadOS, you’re giving them the ability to access, record and transmit anything you type using their keyboard app. Most of the privacy and security risks of third-party keyboard apps come from something called “full access.” Unfortunately, most third-party keyboards apps ask for said access.īut even if you’ve seen Apple’s default warning message, you may still be confused about “full access” and what it means for you and your device. But in many cases, that isn’t always going to be the best idea. Privacy and security risks of third-party keyboards Third-party keyboards need “full access” to function properly in a lot of cases. How to find third-party keyboards on your iPhone or iPad.Why to stick with the native iOS keyboard.Why do keyboard apps ask for Full Access?.Privacy and security risks of third-party keyboards.

Apple keyboard predictive text