Spotify Privacy Policy
Effective as of 12 December 2022
2. Your personal data rights and controls
3. Personal data we collect about you
4. Our purpose for using your personal data
7. Transfer to other countries
8. Keeping your personal data safe
1. About this Policy
This Privacy Policy describes how we process your personal data at Spotify AB. From now on, we'll call it the 'Policy'.
It applies to your use of:
- all Spotify streaming services as a user. For example this includes:
- your use of Spotify on any device
- the personalisation of your user experience. Watch our personalisation explainer video to learn more about this
- the infrastructure required to provide our services
- connection of your Spotify account with another application
- both our free or paid streaming options (each a 'Service Option')
- other Spotify services which include a link to this Policy. These include Spotify websites, Customer Service and the Community Site
From now on, we'll collectively call these the 'Spotify Service'.
From time to time, we may develop new or offer additional services. They'll also be subject to this Policy, unless stated otherwise when we introduce them.
This Policy is not...
- the Spotify Terms of Use, which is a separate document. The Terms of Use outline the legal contract between you and Spotify for using the Spotify Service. It also describes the rules of Spotify and your user rights
- about your use of other Spotify services which have their own privacy policy. Other Spotify services include Anchor, Soundtrap, Megaphone and the Spotify Live app
Other resources and settings
Key information about your personal data is right here in this Policy. However, you might want to take a look at our other privacy resources and controls:
- Privacy Center: A user-friendly hub with summaries of key topics and helpful videos. It includes the 'Your Privacy Controls' video which shows you how to exercise your user rights and make choices about the way we process your data. See Section 2 'Your personal data rights and controls' for more on user rights.
- Privacy Settings: Control the processing of certain personal data, including tailored advertising.
- Notification Settings: Set which marketing communications you get from Spotify.
- Settings (found in the Desktop and Mobile versions of Spotify): Control certain aspects of the Spotify Service such as 'Social' or 'Explicit Content'. On the 'Social' setting, you can:
- start a Private session
- choose whether to share what you listen to on Spotify with your followers
- choose whether to show your recently played artists on your public profile
On the 'Explicit Content' setting you can control whether explicit-rated content can be played on your Spotify account.
- Cookies Policy: Information on how we use cookies and how to manage your cookie preferences. Cookies are files saved on your phone, tablet or computer when you visit a website.
2. Your personal data rights and controls
Many privacy laws give rights to individuals over their personal data. These laws include the General Data Protection Regulation, or 'GDPR'.
Some rights only apply when Spotify uses a certain 'legal basis' to process your data. We explain each legal basis, and when Spotify uses each one, in Section 4 'Our purpose for using your personal data'.
The table below explains:
- your rights
- circumstances when they apply (such as the legal basis required)
- how to use them
You can also watch our video about Your Privacy Controls.
| It’s your right to... | How? | |
|---|---|---|
| Be informed | Be informed of the personal data we process about you and how we process it. | We inform you:
|
| Access | Request access to the personal data we process about you. |
To request a copy of your personal data from Spotify, either:
When you download your data you will receive the information about your data that Spotify has to provide under Article 15 of the GDPR. If you would like more information about how we process your personal data, you can contact us. |
| Rectification | Request that we amend or update your personal data where it’s inaccurate or incomplete. | You can edit your User Data under ‘Edit profile’ in your account or by contacting us. |
| Erasure | Request that we erase certain of your personal data. For example, you can ask us to erase personal data:
There are situations where Spotify is unable to delete your data, for example when:
|
There are several ways you can erase personal data from Spotify:
|
| Restriction | Request that we stop processing all or some of your personal data. You can do this if:
You can request that we stop this processing temporarily or permanently. |
You can exercise your right to restriction by contacting us. |
| Object | Object to us processing your personal data. You can do this if:
|
To exercise your right to object, you can:
|
| Data portability | Request a copy of your personal data in electronic format and the right to transmit that personal data for use in another party’s service. You can request us to transmit your data when we are processing your personal data on the legal bases of consent or performance of contract. However Spotify will try to honour any request to the extent possible. |
For information about how to exercise the right to portability, see ‘Access’ above. |
| Not be subject to automated decision making | Not be subject to a decision based solely on automated decision making (decisions without human involvement), including profiling, where the decision would have a legal effect on you or produce a similarly significant effect. | Spotify does not carry out this type of automated decision making in the Spotify Service. |
| Withdrawal of consent | Withdraw your consent to us collecting or using your personal data. You can do this if Spotify is processing your personal data on the legal basis of consent. |
To withdraw your consent, you can:
|
| Right to lodge a complaint | Contact the Swedish Authority for Privacy Protection or your local data protection authority about any questions or concerns. | You can find the Swedish Authority’s details here. You can also go to the website of your local data protection authority. |
Tailored advertising controls
What is tailored advertising?
- This is when we use information about you to tailor ads to be more relevant to you. This is also known as interest based advertising.
- An example of tailored advertising is when an advertising partner has information suggesting you like cars. This could enable us to show you ads about cars.
How to control tailored advertising:
- You can control tailored advertising in your account Privacy Settings under 'Tailored Ads'.
- You can also control tailored advertising for some podcasts using the link in the episode's show description. This applies where the content provider inserts advertising into the podcast to fund it. The hosting provider, which might not be Spotify, manages these controls for the podcast.
If you are 'opted out' of Tailored Ads in your Privacy Settings, you may still get advertising. This can include on our free Service Option, as well as our paid Service Option, as applicable (for example, advertising in podcasts). This type of advertising is based on your registration information and what you are currently listening to on our services. For example, if you are listening to a cooking podcast, you may hear an ad for a food processor.
3. Personal data we collect about you
These tables set out the categories of personal data we collect from you. You can also watch our video about Personal Data at Spotify.
| Collected when you sign up for the Spotify Service or when you update your account | |
|---|---|
| Category | Description |
| User Data | Personal data that we need to create your Spotify account and that enables you to use the Spotify Service. The type of data collected and used depends on the type of Service Option you have. It also depends on how you create your account, the country you are in, and if you use third party services to sign in. This may include your:
We receive some of this data from you e.g. from the sign up form or account page. We also collect some of this data from your device e.g. country or region. For more information about how we collect and use this data, see ‘Your general (non-precise) location’ in the Usage Data category. |
| Street Address Data | We may ask for and process your street address for the following reasons:
In some cases, we may use a third party application to help you verify your address, such as Google Maps. |
| Collected through your use of the Spotify Service | |
|---|---|
| Categories | Description |
| Usage Data |
Personal data collected and processed about you when you’re accessing or using the Spotify Service. There are a few types of information this includes, listed in the following sections. Information about how you use Spotify Examples include:
Examples include:
Your general (non-precise) location Your general location includes country, region or state. We may learn this from technical data (e.g. your IP address, language setting of your device) or payment currency. We need this to:
Your device sensor data Motion-generated or orientation-generated device sensor data if needed to provide features of the Spotify Service that require this data. This is data which your device collects about the way you move or hold your device. |
| Additional data you may choose to give us | |
|---|---|
| Categories | Description |
| Voice Data |
If voice features are available in your market and where you’ve chosen to use a voice feature, we collect and process voice data. Voice data means audio recordings of your voice and transcripts of those recordings. For more information on how different voice features work, and how you can control and turn them off, see our Voice Control Policy. |
| Payment and Purchase Data | If you make any purchases from Spotify or sign up for a paid Service Option or a trial, we will need to process your payment data. The exact personal data collected and used will vary depending on the payment method. It will include information such as:
|
| Survey and Research Data | When you respond to a survey or take part in user research, we collect and use the personal data you provide. |
We receive some of the data mentioned above from third parties. The below table describes the categories of those third parties.
| Third party sources that we receive your data from | ||
|---|---|---|
| Categories of third parties | Description | Data categories |
| Authentication partners | If you register for or log into the Spotify Service using another service, that service will send your information to us. This information helps create your account with us. | User Data |
| Third party applications, services and devices you connect to your Spotify account | If you connect your Spotify account to a third party application, service or device, we may collect and use information from them. This collection is to make the integration possible. These third party apps, services or devices may include:
We’ll ask your permission before we collect your information from certain third parties. |
User Data Usage Data |
| Technical service partners | We work with technical service partners that give us certain data. This includes mapping IP addresses to non-precise location data (e.g., country or region, city, state). This makes it possible for Spotify to provide the Spotify Service, content, and features. We also work with security service providers who help us protect user accounts. |
User Data Usage Data |
| Payment partners and Merchants | If you choose to pay through third parties (e.g. telco carriers) or by invoice, we may get data from our payment partners. This allows us to:
If we direct you to a merchant, we receive data from the merchant that is related to your purchase. For example, we might direct you to an artist’s merchandise store on a third party platform or to a third party ticketing website. Receiving this data allows us to:
|
Payment and Purchase Data |
| Advertising and marketing partners | We receive inferences from certain advertising or marketing partners. These inferences are the partners’ understanding of your interests and preferences. This allows us to deliver more relevant ads and marketing. |
Usage Data |
| Acquired companies | We may receive data about you from companies we acquire. This is to enhance our services, products, and offerings. | User Data Usage Data |
If you download the Spotify mobile app and try Spotify using a logged out user experience, we will collect limited information about your usage of the Spotify Service, including Usage Data. We do this to understand how you are accessing and using the Service. We also do this to ensure we provide the right experience for you, for example based on your country or region. If you decide to create a Spotify account to experience our service in full, then we will combine this data with your Spotify account data.
4. Our purpose for using your personal data
The table below sets out:
- our purpose for processing your personal data
- our legal justifications (each called a 'legal basis') under data protection law, for each purpose
- categories of personal data which we use for each purpose. See more about these categories in Section 3 'Personal data we collect about you'
You can also watch our video about Personal Data at Spotify.
Here is a general explanation of each 'legal basis' to help you understand the table:
- Performance of a Contract: When it's necessary for Spotify (or a third party) to process your personal data to:
- comply with obligations under a contract with you. This includes Spotify's obligations under the Terms of Use to provide the Spotify Service to you, or
- verify information before a new contract with you begins.
- Legitimate Interest: When Spotify or a third party has an interest in using your personal data in a certain way, which is necessary and justified considering any possible risks to you and other Spotify users. For example, using your Usage Data to improve the Spotify Service for all users. Contact us if you want to understand a specific justification.
- Consent: When Spotify asks you to actively indicate your agreement to Spotify's use of your personal data for a certain purpose.
- Compliance with Legal Obligations: When Spotify must process your personal data to comply with a law.
| Purpose for processing your data | Legal basis that permits the purpose | Categories of personal data used for the purpose |
|---|---|---|
| To provide the Spotify Service in accordance with our contract with you. See Section 1 ‘About this Policy’ for what we mean by the Spotify Service. For example, when we use your personal data to:
|
Performance of a Contract |
|
| To provide further parts of the Spotify Service. For example, when we use your personal data to enable you to share a link to Spotify content with someone else. |
Legitimate Interest Our legitimate interests here include:
|
|
| To provide certain additional voluntary features of the Spotify Service. When this is the case, we will clearly ask for your consent. | Consent |
|
| To understand, diagnose, troubleshoot, and fix issues with the Spotify Service. For example, we use your personal data to:
|
Performance of a Contract |
|
| To evaluate and develop new features, technologies, and improvements to the Spotify Service. For example:
|
Legitimate Interest Our legitimate interests here include developing and improving products and features for our users. |
|
| For marketing or advertising where the law requires us to collect your consent. For example, when we use cookies to understand your interests or the law requires consent for email marketing. |
Consent |
|
| For other marketing, promotion and advertising purposes where the law does not require consent. For example, when we use your personal data to tailor advertising to your interests. |
Legitimate Interest Our legitimate interests here include using advertising to fund the Spotify Service, so that we can offer much of it for free. |
|
| To comply with a legal obligation that we are subject to. This might be:
For example, when we use your date of birth when required for age verification purposes. |
Compliance with legal obligations |
|
| To comply with a request from law enforcement, courts, or other competent authorities. |
Compliance with legal obligations, and legitimate interest Our legitimate interests here include assisting law enforcement authorities to prevent or detect serious crime. |
|
| To fulfil contractual obligations with third parties. For example, when we provide pseudonymised data about our users’ listening because we have an agreement with a Spotify rightsholder to do so. Pseudonymised data means that your data is identified by a code rather than your name or other directly identifying information. |
Legitimate Interest Our legitimate interests here include:
|
|
| To take appropriate action with reports of intellectual property infringement and inappropriate content. | Legitimate Interest Our legitimate interests here include protecting intellectual property and original content. |
|
| To establish, exercise, or defend legal claims. For example, if we are involved in litigation and we need to provide information to our lawyers in relation to that legal case. |
Legitimate Interest Our legitimate interests here include:
|
|
| To conduct business planning, reporting, and forecasting. For example, when we look at aggregated user data like the number of new sign ups in a country in order to plan new locations to launch our products and features in. |
Legitimate Interest Our legitimate interests here include researching and planning so that we can keep running our business successfully. |
|
| To process your payment. For example, when we use your personal data to let you purchase a Spotify subscription. |
Performance of a Contract, and consent |
|
| To detect and prevent fraud. For example, when we analyse Usage Data to check for fraudulent use of the Spotify Service. |
Legitimate Interest Our legitimate interests here include protecting the Spotify Service and our users against fraud and other illegal activity. |
|
| To conduct research and surveys. For example, when we contact our users to ask for your feedback. |
Legitimate Interest Our legitimate interests here include to understand more about how users think about and use the Spotify Service. |
|
In jurisdictions where legitimate interest is not recognised as a legal basis, we rely on contractual necessity or consent.
5. Sharing your personal data
This section sets out who receives personal data which is collected or generated through your use of the Spotify Service.
Publicly available information
The following personal data will always be publicly available on the Spotify Service (except to any user you have blocked):
- your profile name
- your profile photo
- your public playlists
- other content you post on the Spotify Service, and any associated titles, descriptions and images
- who you follow on the Spotify Service
- who follows you on the Spotify Service
You or another user can share certain information on third party services, like social media or messaging platforms. This includes:
- your profile
- any content you post on Spotify and details about that content
- your public playlists
When this sharing occurs, the third party service may store a copy of it to support their features.
Personal data you may choose to share
We will only share the following personal data with those outlined in the table below:
- where you have chosen to use a Spotify Service feature, or a third party application, service or device, and we need to share personal data to enable this, or
- if you otherwise grant us your permission to share the personal data. For example, you can do it by selecting the appropriate setting in the Spotify Service or by giving your consent
| Categories of recipients | Categories of data you can choose to share | Reason for sharing |
|---|---|---|
| Third party applications, services and devices you connect to your Spotify account |
|
To connect your Spotify account, or so that you can use the Spotify Service in connection with third party applications, services or devices. Examples of such third party applications, services and devices include:
You can see and remove many third party connections under ‘Apps’ in your account. |
| Support community |
|
To enable you to use the Spotify Support Community service. When you register for an account on the Spotify Support Community, we’ll ask you to create a profile name. This will be publicly displayed to anyone who uses the Spotify Support Community. We’ll also display any questions or comments you post. |
| Other Spotify users |
|
To share information about your use of the Spotify Service with other Spotify users. These could include your followers on Spotify. For example, under ‘Social’ settings you can choose to share your recently played artists and your playlists on your profile. You can also choose to create or join a shared playlist with other users. Shared playlists give you social recommendations based on your listening activity. |
| Artists and record labels |
|
To receive news or promotional offers from artists, record labels or other partners. You may choose to share your User Data for this purpose. You’ll always have the option to change your mind and withdraw your consent at any time. |
Information we may share
See this table for details of who we share to and why.
| Categories of recipients | Categories of data | Reason for sharing |
|---|---|---|
| Service providers |
|
So they can provide their services to Spotify. These service providers include those we hire to:
|
| Payment partners |
|
So they can process your payments, and for anti-fraud purposes. |
| Advertising partners |
|
So they can help us deliver more relevant advertising to you on the Spotify Service, and help measure the effectiveness of ads. For example, our ad partners help us facilitate tailored advertising. |
| Marketing Partners |
|
To promote Spotify with our partners. We share certain User Data and Usage Data with these partners where necessary to:
Examples of partners include:
Our partners may also combine the personal data we share with them with other data they collect about you, e.g. your use of their services. We and our partners may use this information to present you with offers, promotions, or other marketing that we think you’ll find relevant. |
| Hosting Platforms |
|
Hosting platforms host podcasts so that they can deliver them to you. We share certain data, such as your IP address, with the hosting platforms when you play a podcast. We also allow you to stream podcasts available from other hosting platforms not owned by Spotify. Podcast providers should explain in the show or episode description which platform is hosting the podcast. See the hosting platform’s own privacy policy for how they use data shared with them. |
| Academic researchers |
|
For activities such as statistical analysis and academic study, but only in a pseudonymised format. |
| Other Spotify group companies, including companies that Spotify acquires |
|
To carry out our daily business operations and so we can maintain, improve and provide the Spotify Service and acquired companies’ services to you. For example:
|
| Law enforcement and other authorities, or other parties to litigation |
|
When we believe in good faith it’s necessary for us to do so, for example:
|
| Purchasers of our business |
|
If we were to sell or negotiate to sell our business to a buyer or possible buyer. In this case, we may transfer your personal data to a successor or affiliate as part of that transaction. |
6. Data retention
We keep your personal data only as long as necessary to provide you with the Spotify Service and for Spotify's legitimate and essential business purposes, such as:
- maintaining the performance of the Spotify Service
- making data-driven business decisions about new features and offerings
- complying with our legal obligations
- resolving disputes
Here are some of the categories of our retention periods:
- Data retained until you remove it
It's your right to request that we delete certain of your personal data. See the section on 'Erasure' in Section 2 'Your personal data rights and controls' for more information.
- Data that expires after a specific period of time
We have set certain retention periods so that some data expires after a specific period of time.
- Data retained until your Spotify account is deleted
We keep some data until your Spotify account is deleted. When your Spotify account is deleted, your data is deleted or anonymised.
- Data retained for extended time periods for limited purposes
After your account is deleted, we keep some data for a longer time period but for very limited purposes.
Criteria used to determine the retention periods include:
- What is the appropriate retention period to carry out our purpose? Our systems are designed to automatically 'age out' data based on a defined retention period. We choose the retention period based on its legitimate business purpose.
- Do we need to keep data to ensure the service that users expect? We keep personal data for an appropriate period to deliver a personalised service to our users over time. We typically keep streaming history for the life of an account, for example, to provide retrospective playlists that users enjoy and personalised recommendations that take listening habits into account. For example, Your Summer Rewind and the end-of-year Wrapped campaign.
- Are users able to update or delete the data themselves? Where users are able to see and update the personal data themselves, we keep the information for as long as the user chooses.
- Do we need to keep the data to uphold our rules and keep our service safe? We may keep data that has been removed from the Spotify Service for a limited period of time. This is:
- to help ensure user safety
- to protect against harmful content on our platform
- to take action with reports of intellectual property infringement
This also helps us investigate potential breaches of our User Guidelines and Platform Rules.
- Is Spotify subject to a legal or contractual obligation to keep or delete the data? Examples include mandatory data retention laws, government orders to preserve data relevant to an investigation or data kept for the purposes of litigation. Conversely, we will remove unlawful content if the law requires us to do so.
7. Transfer to other countries
Because of the global nature of our business, Spotify shares personal data internationally with Spotify group companies, subcontractors and partners in order to provide the Spotify Service to you. They may process your data in countries whose data protection laws are not considered to be as strong as EU laws or the laws which apply where you live. For example, they may not give you the same rights over your data.
Whenever we transfer personal data internationally, we use tools to:
- make sure the data transfer complies with applicable law
- help to give your data the same level of protection as it has in the EU
To ensure each data transfer complies with applicable EU legislation, we use the following legal mechanisms:
- Standard Contractual Clauses ('SCCs'). These clauses require the other party to protect your data and to provide you with EU-level rights and protections. For example, we use SCCs to transfer the personal data described in Section 3 'Personal data we collect about you' to our hosting provider which uses servers in the US. You can exercise your rights under the Standard Contractual Clauses by contacting us or the third party who processes your personal data.
- Adequacy Decisions. This means that we transfer personal data to countries outside of the European Economic Area which have adequate laws to protect personal data, as determined by the European Commission. For example, we transfer the personal data described in Section 3 'Personal data we collect about you' to vendors based in the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, Republic of Korea and Switzerland.
We also identify and use additional protections as appropriate for each data transfer. For example, we use:
- technical protections, such as encryption and pseudonymisation
- policies and processes to challenge disproportionate or unlawful government authority requests
8. Keeping your personal data safe
We're committed to protecting our users' personal data. We put in place appropriate technical and organisational measures to help protect the security of your personal data. However, be aware that no system is ever completely secure.
We have put various safeguards in place to guard against unauthorised access and unnecessary retention of personal data in our systems. These include pseudonymisation, encryption, access, and retention policies.
To protect your user account, we encourage you to:
- use a strong password which you only use for your Spotify account
- never share your password with anyone
- limit access to your computer and browser
- log out once you have finished using the Spotify Service on a shared device
- read more detail on protecting your account
You can log out of Spotify in multiple places at once by using the 'Sign out everywhere' function on your account page.
If other individuals have access to your Spotify account, then they can access personal data, controls and the Spotify Service available in your account. For example, you might have allowed someone to use your account on a shared device.
It's your responsibility to only allow individuals to use your account where you're comfortable sharing this personal data with them. Anyone else's use of your Spotify account may impact your personalised recommendations and be included in your data download.
9. Children
Note: This Policy doesn't apply to Spotify Kids unless the Spotify Kids Privacy Policy says so. Spotify Kids is a separate Spotify application.
The Spotify Service has a minimum 'Age Limit' in each country or region. The Spotify Service is not directed to children whose age:
- is under the age of 13 years
- makes it illegal to process their personal data, or
- requires parental consent to process their personal data
We do not knowingly collect or use personal data from children under the applicable Age Limit. If you're under the Age Limit, do not use the Spotify Service, and do not provide any personal data to us. Instead, we recommend using a Spotify Kids account.
If you're a parent of a child under the Age Limit and become aware that your child has provided personal data to Spotify, contact us.
If we learn that we've collected the personal data of a child under the applicable Age Limit, we'll take reasonable steps to delete the personal data. This may require us to delete the Spotify account for that child.
When using a shared device on the main Spotify Service, be cautious about playing or recommending any inappropriate content to individuals under 18 years old.
10. Changes to this Policy
We may occasionally make changes to this Policy.
When we make material changes to this Policy, we'll provide you with prominent notice as appropriate under the circumstances. For example, we may display a prominent notice within the Spotify Service or send you an email or device notification.
11. How to contact us
For any questions or concerns about this Policy, contact our Data Protection Officer any one of these ways:
- email privacy@spotify.com
- write to us at: Spotify AB, Regeringsgatan 19, 111 53 Stockholm, Sweden
Spotify AB is the data controller of personal data processed under this Policy.
© Spotify AB