Spotify Tracks Detailed Location for 7 Years Even With Location Services Off
AaronBergman18 · x · 2026-10-17
Aaron Bergman dug into his Spotify technical logs export (with Claude's help) and found that Spotify tracks and indefinitely stores detailed location data even with location services off — and even for paid users.
Key findings: the data spans seven years, not 88 days — every play since January 2019 carries an IP address, giving city-level location on 95% of his 2,478 listening days (93% from Wi-Fi alone). The logs reconstruct his life trajectory: Georgetown University's network (2019–2022), a series of DC-area homes, Berkeley from September 2026, plus trips to London, the Cayman Islands, Oregon and annual Jersey Shore visits on the same Red Bank network. It's unclear if it can pinpoint specific addresses, but it often could if it wanted to.
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