Swiftkey privacy

Yes.

 

The amount of FUD over this topic has made me a little apprehensive. I installed it, but when a password field would come up id get a little iffy. Would be interested to really know the deal with it.

 

Not going to risk having every keystroke being transmitted and stored on the developers server just to achieve intuitive typing from a third party keyboard.

 

This. I've never said to myself, "Man, I really wish I had swype!". I'll stick with the default Apple keyboard.

 

Even if you have 3rd party keyboard, iOS8 requires the default Apple keyboard for secure items such as passwords and credit card. There are a few threads on this already.

SOURCE

 

For things like password fields the regular Apple keyboard comes up.

 

Hey, I'm one of the SwiftKey iOS engineers (hit me up on twitter: @czechboy0)

The deal with privacy is as follows:

None of your typing data leaves your device unless you specifically enable SwiftKey Cloud, which is an opt-in feature for backup, sync and personalization (teaching the keyboard how you type so that it can be more accurate and thus useful for you). The Cloud is a great service, but you do not have to use it in order to get predictions, Flow and additional languages.

When it comes to Full Access (poorly named guard, if you ask me) - that means that the keyboard can talk to our container app - so that you can download additional languages, change settings, themes and also, use SwiftKey Cloud, if you want to. That's it.

We take your privacy very seriously - as iOS users ourselves, we know how it feels when you don't know what's happening to your data. That's why we're being very transparent and open about data security.

See an FAQ on full access here: https://iossupport.swiftkey.com/hc/en-us/articles/201466641-Why-does-SwiftKey-need-Full-Access-, our privacy policy - stating that we will NOT sell your personal data to third parties (so no worries about ads and other scams), here's the link: http://swiftkey.com/en/privacy/

When you do decide to use SwiftKey Cloud (which greatly improves the quality of predictions, plus syncs your data between iOS and Android devices), all data is encrypted and secure and you can always turn off and delete all your data, if you decide to do so - it's YOUR data and you have control over it. We're just helping you to keep it in sync between all your devices and backed up, in case you lose your phone.

There's been a great deal of talk around these things - and we definitely welcome this. People should always understand what's happening to their data. And we are committed to preserving your privacy while at the same time enabling you to use great features such as personalization and sync

If you have any other questions, don't hesitate to head to our support forums or tweet at me directly. We're just trying to make a great product for as many people as possible

 

Thanks for that! Definitely reassuring

 

Finally cleared that up, thanks. Expect one more Twitter follower

 

Swiftkey privacy

I am in the information security field and here is my take...ultimately this comes down to trust. Do you trust that Apple is implementing these sandboxes properly and doing proper code review when approving the app in the app store? Do you trust SwiftKey is telling the truth? They have been open about their app and the cloud functionality. I would like to see the app to explain the key differences to the average user as most will sign up for it not realizing the implications. However, their app works best with cloud enabled and improves the user experience. Always a hard balance to find. I am not saying don't trust or trust Apple or SwiftKey, but that is a personal decision. Me personally, If I decide to use SwiftKey, I'll probably disable the cloud functionality even though it it encrypted, etc just to be on the safe side.

 

what if an agency asks for access to the data you hold? are you part of any government prism type program where you have given them full access to your servers? and if yes are you allowed to say? (hmm what a clear unanswerable question that is, anything other than yes we are part of it makes no sense as it reveals nothing haha)

 

Just got into my banks user name field to test that.
User name should be private.
Swift key board came up - full access is toggled on.

 

Well, username is not really protected when you are typing it in on a computer somewhere either. As for full access for SwiftKey, that doesn't send them info anyways.

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Even then it would seem that it might only play a role if SwiftKey Cloud is being used.

 

I'm having trust issues too. I just don't feel comfortable with something like this, so although I installed swiftkey, I did not grant it the access it wanted and I then uninstalled it too.

Sorry, but you/Apple will need to do better.

 

Um, what do you suggest? They've explained it all, seems like all the options are there to opt in or out of cloud etc - what should THEY do better to please you?

With regard to the cloud, how does this affect battery life? Is it a constant communication as you're typing or just an upload at intervals? If it's always a two-way communication I can imagine that would drain the battery a bit?

 

If you think Apple isn't doing the exact same thing as SwiftKey with their "prediction" feature then you might want to think twice about that.

I've used SwiftKey for years on Android but they always used to store all prediction data on your device until a year ago when they moved to SwiftKey Cloud. Think about every keystroke being recorded on the 'net - you think the NSA would like that data?

 

So how does SwiftKey intend to monetize its app? Sale of custom themes like on Android? Trying the app now. It's definitely different. Generally an improvement over slowly taking out the words with one finger. Still getting the hang of it, but first impression is that I quite like it.

Consider myself sold (for the moment at least).

 

Apple's website asked me to enter a credit card security code. The keyboard did NOT change from Swiftkey to Apple's.

I'm not blaming Swiftkey for that. It's probably a missing html tag on Apple's site. But that's the problem with assurances of security. Actual software behavior may not be what the developers intend.

 

Can't you just switch to apple keyboard manually, when entering username/password info if it doesn't do it automatically?

 

I know this doesn't relate to the privacy but will you be releasing new color schemes? It's a bit silly but three only reason i am using touch pal is because of the orange keyboard.

 

Well if what the developer is saying is true then by not using the cloud the app stores all data locally and never transmits it out. Again is all this is true then I don't see how that is any different than the Apple keyboard.

 

I downloaded SwiftKey then deleted. It just didn't work on my 6. Couldn't even select it as default. The Apple keyboard is just fine.

Will give it time and some updates and see what happens but for now it's not worth the pain or the risk.

 

Personally, I think I would feel more comfortable with third-party keyboards if Apple had prohibited them from having *any* network access whatsoever (or at least allow the user to refuse them access). At the same time, though, this move would have limited their functionality. It's a trade-off. I'm a bit leery about the security implications, reassuring privacy policy or not, so I'm not using any third-party keyboards.

That doesn't mean I think they shouldn't exist. For some people, they don't care about the privacy concerns, and/or the added/different functionality makes it worth it for them.