In 2018, Spotify’s music playing platform requested a patent on technology that would allow users to record conversations with users and their environmental noises. According to the platform, this technology would be geared towards making more personalized musical recommendations. Recently, on January 12, 2021, the request made a couple of years ago has been accepted by the company. Thus, Spotify could monitor user conversations.

The patent allows knowing the intonation, accent, rhythm and others of the voice of the users. As if it were not enough, the knowledge of the voice can also allow the identification of other metadata points such as emotional state, gender, age or environment. On the link to the last point, Spotify can get to know if the user is alone or surrounded by people, if they are in a closed space…

The news released by the Pitchfork patent media indicates that the platform has not released any roadmap on the implementation of user monitoring technology. Moreover, it is stressed that the patent is about to decipher whether it already exists or is still only a speculative idea. “It should be noted that patenting technologies not marketed by technology companies is not unusual,” says journalist Noah Yoo.

However, Music Business Worldwide notes that the patent “can be transformative for the platform, but can’t be said otherwise: it’s actually quite fearsome.”