Spotify offers several plan options, including the Premium Family plan. For $14.99 per month, families can sign up for up to 6 premium accounts. The catch is that everyone on the plan must have the same address.
Now, the music streaming service is working on enforcing the “family members under one roof” rule by updating their terms and conditions. Last month, the terms and conditions were revised. Now, under Eligibility and Verification, Spotify says that they may ask for re-verification of a home address “from time to time” to confirm that everyone using the family plan is still eligible.
This updated rule asking users to verify their location has brought up privacy concerns, including children’s privacy concerns as kids over the age of 13 are allowed to be a part of the family plan.
“The changes to the policy allow Spotify to arbitrarily use the location of an individual to ascertain if they continue to reside at the same address when using a family account, and it’s unclear how often Spotify will query users’ devices for this information,” said Christopher Weatherhead of Privacy International, according to a report from CNet. There are “worrying privacy implications,” he added.
Spotify says that the data is encrypted and that after the verification is completed, the data isn’t stored or used to track location.
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