Spotify could listen to your conversations with new patented plans

Spotify appear to be working on a new, innovative way for their users to discover new music. According to reports, they intend to do so by listening in on your conversations.

Spotify’s new patented idea would ideally gather “intonation, stress, rhythm and the likes of units of speech” from the user, as detailed in a report by Music Business Worldwide. In a completely unique approach from the music streaming behemoth, this seems like an entirely unprecedented means of collecting taste attributes of their users. In the future we could see the program include a passive ability to predict whether you are happy, excited, or sad, all depending on one’s speech. Subsequently, the app could then display certain Spotify playlists and new music that it thinks would be of interest to the user at that time.

Unsurprisingly, the patent also raises questions as to if the recording of private conversations is a breach of privacy as some would undoubtedly feel uncomfortable having an app record them in places such as their own homes. It will be interesting to see how this idea develops in the near future as the patent, first filed in February of 2018, was finally approved on January 12 of this year.

In regards to the patent, a Spotify spokesperson sent the following comment to Pitchfork:

“Spotify has filed patent applications for hundreds of inventions, and we regularly file new applications. Some of these patents become part of future products, while others don’t. Our ambition is to create the best audio experience out there, but we don’t have any news to share at this time.“

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