Spotify uses personal data to create the best listening experience. Learn more about your data rights.
Understanding Privacy at Spotify
What personal data we collect
Why we collect personal data
How we protect your personal data
How we share / transfer your personal data?
Your personal data rights
Control your data
Our Policies
How to contact us
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.
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:
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 profile name and email address, as described in more detail in section 3 of our Privacy Policy.
Through your use of the Spotify Service - when you use or access the Spotify Service, we collect and process 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 Survey and Research 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 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 and surveys
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 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
How does Spotify share / transfer my personal data?
Because of the global nature of our business, Spotify shares your personal data internationally with Spotify group companies, subcontractors and partners when carrying out the activities described in our Privacy Policy. 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.
For more detailed information, including how to exercise your rights, see section 2 of our Privacy Policy.
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.
Be informed
It’s your right to be informed of the personal data we process about you and how we process 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.
Withdraw your consent
It’s your right to withdraw your consent to us collecting or using your personal data.
Settings (found in the Desktop and Mobile versions of Spotify) - control certain aspects of the Spotify Service such as “Social” and “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, and
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.
Our Policies
At Spotify we are dedicated to providing you with the best user experience. Below are the policies that we apply when providing you with this service.