Understanding Privacy at Spotify
At Spotify, we want to give you the best possible experience. To do this we use some personal data about you to provide your personalized Spotify service and to develop the best audio platform for our listeners and creators. We are also committed to protecting the privacy and security of your data. Check out the below privacy resources and watch the video on this page to learn more.
- Our Privacy Center is a user-friendly hub that explains the key elements of our Privacy Policy - the data we collect, how we use and protect it, and your rights and controls over it.
- Our full Privacy Policy contains all the important details. We have also included further information about rights and disclosures as required under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) in our California Privacy Disclosures supplement.
- Our Privacy & Security Spotify Support pages provide extra support and answers to frequently asked questions.
- If you’re still looking for help, you can contact us.
What personal data does Spotify collect about me?
It is very important to us that you understand what personal data we collect about you, how we collect it, and why it’s necessary.
We collect your personal data in the following ways:
- Personal data collected when you sign up for the Spotify Service or when you update your account - we collect certain personal data to create your Spotify account so you can use the Spotify Service. This includes your User Data and Street Address Data, as described in more detail in section 3 of our Privacy Policy.
- Personal data collected through your use of the Spotify Service - when you use or access the Spotify Service, we collect personal data about your actions. This includes the songs you have played and playlists you have created. This is the Usage Data category contained in section 3 of our Privacy Policy.
- Personal data that you choose to give us - from time to time, you may also provide us with additional personal data or give us permission to collect personal data e.g. to provide you with more features or functionality. These include Voice Data, Payment and Purchase Data and Contests, Surveys and Sweepstakes Data categories contained in section 3 of our Privacy Policy.
- Personal data we collect from third party sources - if you sign up for Spotify using another service or connect your Spotify account to a third party application, service or device, we’ll receive your data from those third parties. We may also receive your data from technical service providers, payment partners and advertising and marketing partners. See section 3 of the Privacy Policy for more details.
Why does Spotify collect and use this personal data?
We collect and use your personal data for the following reasons:
- to provide the personalized Spotify Service
- to understand, diagnose, troubleshoot, and fix issues with the Spotify Service
- to evaluate and develop new features, technologies, and improvements to the Spotify Service
- for marketing, promotion, and advertising purposes
- to comply with legal obligations and law enforcement requests
- to fulfill contractual obligations with third parties, for example our agreements with owners of content on the Spotify Service, and take appropriate action with reports of intellectual property infringement and inappropriate content
- to establish, exercise, or defend legal claims
- to conduct business planning, reporting, and forecasting
- to process your payment
- to detect and prevent fraud, including fraudulent payments and fraudulent use of the Spotify Service
- to conduct research, contests, surveys, and sweepstakes
For more information about why Spotify uses your personal data, and our legal basis for doing so, see section 4 of our Privacy Policy.
How does Spotify protect my personal data?
We are committed to protecting our users’ personal data. We implement appropriate technical and organizational measures to help protect the security of your personal data. However, please note that no system is ever completely secure.
We have implemented various safeguards including pseudonymization, encryption, access, and retention policies to guard against unauthorised access and unnecessary retention of personal data in our systems.
To protect your user account, we encourage you to:
- use a strong password that is unique to 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
For more detail, see section 8 of our Privacy Policy.
How does Spotify share / transfer my personal data?
When carrying out the activities described in our Privacy Policy, Spotify shares your personal data internationally with Spotify group companies, subcontractors and partners. 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
See section 7 of our Privacy Policy for more details about the protections we use when transferring personal data internationally.
Your Personal Data Rights
You may be aware that privacy laws, including the General Data Protection Regulation or "GDPR", give certain rights to individuals over their personal data. These are described below.
Access your personal data
It’s your right to be informed of the personal data we process about you and to request access to it.
Update your personal data
It’s your right to request that we amend or update your personal data where it’s inaccurate or incomplete.
Restrict the use of your personal data
It’s your right to request that we temporarily or permanently stop processing all or some of your personal data.
Object to the use of your personal data
It’s your right to object to us processing your personal data at any time, on grounds relating to your particular situation.
Object to direct marketing
It’s your right to object to your personal data being processed for direct marketing purposes.
Object to automated decision making
It’s your right to not be subject to a decision based solely on automated decision making, including profiling, where the decision would have a legal effect on you or produce a similarly significant effect.
Port your personal data
It’s your right to request a copy of your personal data in an electronic format and the right to transmit that personal data for use in another party’s service.
Erase your personal data
It’s your right to request that we delete your personal data.
How to exercise your rights
Access: To request a copy of your personal data from Spotify, visit your account Privacy Settings. There you can automatically download much of your personal data and find out how to request more information.
Rectification: You can edit your User Data under “Edit profile” in your account.
Erasure:
- You can remove audio content from your profile by selecting the relevant content and choosing to remove it. For example, you can remove playlists from your profile, or remove a track from your playlist.
- To request erasure of your other personal data from Spotify, see our support page.
Your other rights: You can contact Spotify directly to exercise your rights at any time.
Where can I go to control what personal data Spotify uses?
- Privacy Settings page - allows you to control some of the categories of personal data we process about you, control the tailored ads you see and hear on Spotify and enables you to access your personal data via a ‘Download my Data’ button.
- Notification Settings page - allows you to choose which communications you receive from Spotify, manage your publicly available personal data, and set your sharing preferences.
- Settings (Desktop and Mobile) - control certain aspects of the Spotify Service such as “Social” and “Explicit Content”.
For more information about how to control your personal data, see data rights and privacy settings.
Our Policies
At Spotify we are dedicated to providing you with the best music experience. Below are the policies that we apply when providing you with this service.