Summary

Currently, Jira Cloud permission schemes do not include permission specific to issue cloning. Any user with the Create issues permission will be able to clone an issue. There's a request to add such permission to Jira Cloud, which can be found in this ticket: JRACLOUD-8497. However, until this is implemented, there is a workaround you can use to restrict the Clone issue action to specific groups or project roles. This can be achieved by updating a project workflow and specifically adding a workflow property to statuses in the workflow.

Solution

In order to start, go to your project and edit its workflow. Click on any status to access the Properties section, as described on this page. 

If you add the following property key to a workflow status:

jira.permission.createclone.projectrole

It will enable the Clone action only for a specific role ID (for example, 10035) specified as the value of the property. The result will be that users not assigned to this role will not see this option in the UI.

Alternatively, if you prefer to grant this permission to a specific group only, you can add the following property key:

jira.permission.createclone.group

The value is the ID of the group you can get from the Admin hub (for example, f6e4d5d5-f336-4b45-b5f4-df1c1d9be2fc). Similarly, only members of this group will see the Clone action in the UI.

What's more, there are other options available as well that you can find on this page. To be specific, apart from projectrole or group, you can also use:

applicationRole, assignee, reporter, sd.customer.portal.only, groupCF, group, lead, projectrole, user, userCF

When the property of your choice has been added, repeat the same for all the other statuses in the workflow to ensure the same permission is applied to all statuses in the workflow. Otherwise, the Clone action may be available in some statuses for all users. 

To finish the process, publish your workflow and test to see if the Clone action is visible to the entitled users.