Apple Music Friends & Privacy

Certain profile information is always public, but you can control who follows your activity. Apple Music does not learn your contacts when recommending friends.
 

Apple Music Friends is designed to protect your information and enable you to choose what you share.

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  • When you create a profile, certain information is always public, but you control who can follow your activity.
  • Apple Music can recommend new friends by periodically checking the contacts on your device. This is done in such a way that Apple Music does not learn your contacts.
  • You control whether people who have your Apple ID contact information see you as a recommended friend.

Protecting the privacy and security of your information is a priority for everyone at Apple. We work hard to collect only the data we need to make your experience better, and when we do collect data we believe it’s important for you to know what we’re collecting and why we need it, so you can make informed choices. Apple Music, like every Apple product and service, is designed with these principles in mind.

If you want to connect or share with other people using Apple Music, you can create a personal profile by providing a user handle (for example, @johnappleseed), display name and, if desired, a profile photo, and other information. Apple stores this information with your account so that you can access it from any of your devices. Your user handle, display name, and profile photo can appear alongside any content you post and activity that you share on Apple Music. Sharing and posting content is not currently intended for or available to Apple IDs for children.

Other people may also be able to find your Apple Music profile using the information that you’ve provided.

You can make the contents of your profile, like listening activity and playlists, available only to those you choose. However, your profile information, such as handle, display name, photo, your followers, and who you are following, are always visible to everyone.

When you create a profile on Apple Music, we will recommend other Apple Music subscribers with whom you may want to connect as friends. Apple does not learn or store information from your contacts when checking for friends to recommend. Only shortened and encrypted hashes of the phone numbers and email addresses in your contacts are sent to Apple, and then matching Apple Music subscribers to be recommended are determined locally on your device. Apple Music can periodically check your contacts to recommend new friends in the future; you can control this in Account Settings by disabling Contacts on Apple Music. If you do not want to be found by others based on the Apple ID contact information they may have about you in their contacts, you can change this in Account Settings by disabling Allow Finding by Apple ID.

Information that you provide in your profile may be updated or removed by you at any time. Whenever you share online, you should think carefully about what you are making public. When you share from Apple Music to other websites or social networks, anything you share is governed by the privacy policies of those other services.

Applicable Legal Basis for Processing Personal Data

We process your personal data in Apple Music Friends generally for performance of your contract with Apple, as necessary for providing the service, and to comply with our legal obligations. Where consent is the appropriate legal basis, we seek it in accordance with applicable local law.

Where applicable local law provides, we process personal data as necessary for purposes of our legitimate interests, including to provide Apple Music Friends and suggest other Apple Music subscribers you may want to connect with.

The data used includes:

  • Your Apple Music Friends profile information and Apple ID contact information
  • Content you post and share, who you follow, and who follows you
  • Information about your contacts
  • Apple Music subscribers you may want to connect with

At all times, information collected by Apple will be treated in accordance with Apple’s Privacy Policy, which can be found at www.apple.com/privacy

Published Date: April 6, 2023