UK Online Safety Act - Child Safety

Spotify provides access to millions of songs, podcasts, and audiobooks from creators around the world. We want young people using our service to be able to discover and enjoy content on Spotify in a way that is appropriate for their age.

To support this, we have safety measures in place aimed at keeping users under the age of 18 safe from illegal or harmful content. We also work closely with external experts, including organizations such as Thorn, the Tech Coalition, WeProtect Alliance, and the Internet Watch Foundation to help us continuously improve these measures and respond to emerging risks.

How do we protect young people from illegal and harmful content?

Spotify’s Platform Rules outline the content we do not allow on our platform anywhere in the world (for example: pornographic content; content that promotes suicide, self-harm and eating disorders; bullying, abuse and hate content; certain violent content). These rules are designed to provide a safer experience on Spotify for everyone, including young people.

In the UK, we also take steps in line with the UK Online Safety Act (UK OSA), which is a law ensuring that online services protect users in relation to illegal content and content that may be harmful to children. As part of these measures, some content may be removed or restricted for UK users, including certain dangerous stunts and harmful substances content, and violence against fictional creatures.

If you come across a song, podcast or audiobook that you think violates Spotify’s Platform Rules, you can report it using our Platform Rules reporting form. If you believe content is illegal or harmful to children under the UK OSA, you can use our UK illegal content reporting form.

How do we find and review content that may violate our rules?

Spotify works to apply our Platform Rules consistently around the world. We use a combination of technology, human review and reports from users and non-users to identify content that may violate our rules.

When content is reported, our teams review it and take appropriate action where a violation is found, which may include removing or restricting the content. We also use technology to proactively identify content that may require further review, including systems that detect keywords, links or patterns of activity associated with potential harm.

Our Platform Rules are developed, maintained and enforced by teams around the world.

How do we know if a user is under 18?

To help provide age-appropriate experiences, we use a combination of user-provided information and, for certain users, age assurance tools.

Providing Date of Birth When Signing Up: We ask all users to provide their date of birth when they sign up with Spotify. This helps us understand if you are old enough to use Spotify in the UK, where you must be at least 13 years old. Users under 13 cannot create their own Spotify accounts, but can be on a Managed Account through a Family plan. These are designed for kids younger than 13 years old to explore Spotify’s music with parental guidance.

Age-Estimation Technology: We use ways to check your age in countries like the UK, partnering with Yoti, to help us identify if users are of eligible age to access certain Spotify content and features. As a part of this process, you may be asked to confirm your age to access features like music videos labeled for users who are 18 years and older, or Messages, which is only available for users who are 16 years and older.

To learn more about Spotify’s age assurance processes, please see here.

Blocking other users on Spotify

If someone’s bothering you and you no longer want to interact with them, you can block their account.

Here’s what happens when you block someone:

• They can’t see your profile or playlists.
• They can’t follow you or find you in search.
• They won’t be notified that you’ve blocked them

You can unblock someone at any time by visiting their profile and selecting “Unblock.”

To learn more about how to block or unblock someone, please see here.

Information for parents and caregivers

We understand that navigating the digital world can be challenging, and that decisions around the content and experiences that are right for your family are personal. If you are a parent or caregiver, you can read more about this here.

This page explains our approach to content and features for users under 18 in the UK, including how these subjects relate to the UK OSA. For global resources, please see the Platform Rules and other Safety & Privacy Centre pages.