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Spotify has exposed the privacy gaps of celebrities and politicians by revealing their playback activity, playlists, and more through a website called Panama Playlists. The site includes data from users like Vice President J.D. Vance, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and NBC's Al Roker. Spotify defaults to making all playlists and profiles public, and users must toggle the "Public playlists" setting to private to protect their privacy.

Spotify has inadvertently exposed the private music tastes of celebrities and politicians, with a newly launched website called Panama Playlists revealing their playback activity and playlists. The site, which went live on July 30, 2025, claims to have scraped Spotify accounts of prominent figures since summer 2024 [1].

The Panama Playlists site exposes the musical preferences of a range of public figures, including Vice President JD Vance, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and NBC's Al Roker. For instance, Vice President JD Vance's "Making Dinner" playlist features songs like "I Want It That Way" by the Backstreet Boys and "One Time" by Justin Bieber [2]. Similarly, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's "My Shazam Tracks" includes songs such as "Get Ur Freak On" by Missy Elliot and "Make Me Feel Your Love" by Adele [3].

The site's anonymous creator claims to have gathered data from publicly available information, including playlists and live listening feeds. However, Spotify has warned that scraping public playlists violates their terms of use [2]. The site's creator has stated that they only collected publicly available information and did not have any affiliation with Spotify [1].

This revelation underscores the importance of users being mindful of their privacy settings on music streaming platforms. Spotify defaults to making all playlists and profiles public, and users must manually toggle the "Public playlists" setting to private to protect their privacy [3].

The Panama Playlists site serves as a reminder of the potential privacy implications of public data and the need for users to be cautious about the information they make available online. As the site continues to grow, it will be interesting to see how Spotify and other platforms address these privacy concerns and whether they will implement more robust privacy settings to protect users' data.

References:
[1] https://nypost.com/2025/07/30/us-news/the-panama-playlists-leak-claims-to-expose-spotify-accounts-of-jd-vance-pols-and-ceos/
[2] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/panama-playlists-spotify-jd-vance-pam-bondi-b2799295.html
[3] https://www.theverge.com/privacy/716386/spotifys-terrible-privacy-settings-just-leaked-palmer-luckeys-bops-and-bangers