Apple has rolled out a new patch for iOS 13 as users discover new bugs seemingly every other week. The maker of the iPhone and other popular devices may have to release another one: A few Apple users who have enabled Family Sharing on their iCloud accounts are complaining that their Keychain credentials are being synced with other family members without permission.
In a tweet, Indian iOS developer Tanmay Sonawane wrote that all the passwords he has stored in Keychain, Apple’s default password manager, were available on his brother’s Apple devices as well. This means, for instance, that when a family member visits a site for which you too have saved the login in Keychain, they will be able to view the option in their Autofill drop-down menu on Safari.
Sonawane is on a Family Sharing plan but clarifies that he has disabled iCloud sharing, which in addition to digital items like books and Apple Music subscription, also allows family members to share iCloud storage.
Sonawane isn’t alone. There are a string of unresolved user complaints on Apple’s support forums. “I noticed that my bank account passwords, cash app passwords, credit cards information is shared across all my devices and also on a family shared plan which I did not authorize,” wrote one user.
On top of that, a couple of these discussions date back to last year, suggesting that the issue may have existed on Apple devices well before iOS 13.
We’ve reached out to Apple for comment and will update the story once we hear back.
It remains unclear whether all Apple users on Family Sharing are affected by this issue. If you are, your best course of action would be to leave the Family Sharing account until Apple rolls out a patch.
To do that on your iPhone or iPad, head over to Settings > Your Name > Family Sharing, than tap Your Name and touch the Leave Family option. Alternatively, on a Mac, you can visit the Apple menu > System Preferences > iCloud > Manage Family, click Your Name, and hit the Remove button present on the bottom left corner.
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