Panama Playlists Expose Spotify Privacy for Celebrities, Politicians, Tech Leaders

A website named Panama Playlists has exposed the Spotify playlists and listening activities of numerous celebrities, tech leaders, and politicians, including Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, and US political figures like Vice President J.D. Vance and Speaker Mike Johnson. The site claims to have scraped this data since summer 2024 due to Spotify's default privacy settings, which make playlists and listening activity publicly accessible unless manually changed by users. Many affected individuals confirmed the authenticity of the leaked playlists and expressed surprise or concern over their exposure. Experts and reports highlight that this is not a data breach but a consequence of Spotify's design that assumes users want to share their music activity publicly, requiring cumbersome steps to privatize content. Meanwhile, Spotify faces artist backlash unrelated to this issue, as CEO Daniel Ek's investment in an AI military weapons company has prompted musicians to withdraw their music from the platform. The exposure underscores significant privacy shortcomings on Spotify, urging users to review their privacy settings carefully.