diff --git a/lib/private/util.php b/lib/private/util.php
index c31ad63b9be2531506aec4536e326851fcfb6496..eb188b649e868342d3076d49c0b3e5fcf13cacdc 100644
--- a/lib/private/util.php
+++ b/lib/private/util.php
@@ -1177,14 +1177,16 @@ class OC_Util {
 	 * This function is used to sanitize HTML and should be applied on any
 	 * string or array of strings before displaying it on a web page.
 	 *
-	 * @param string|array &$value
+	 * @param string|array $value
 	 * @return string|array an array of sanitized strings or a single sanitized string, depends on the input parameter.
 	 */
-	public static function sanitizeHTML(&$value) {
+	public static function sanitizeHTML($value) {
 		if (is_array($value)) {
-			array_walk_recursive($value, 'OC_Util::sanitizeHTML');
+			$value = array_map(function($value) {
+				return self::sanitizeHTML($value);
+			}, $value);
 		} else {
-			//Specify encoding for PHP<5.4
+			// Specify encoding for PHP<5.4
 			$value = htmlspecialchars((string)$value, ENT_QUOTES, 'UTF-8');
 		}
 		return $value;