Billions of people receive recommendations from digital platforms that impact on their daily offline life. What series they binge next, where they go on holiday, their next favourite song and the people they date are often shaped by the algorithmic curation of digital platforms.
Platforms need to know as much as possible about their users in order to make these recommendations. But the full extent of the data that companies collect and use is still largely a closely guarded secret.
Recent research has found that Spotify and Tinder are extracting an ever-growing amount of data from users. Through an analysis of successive versions of the platforms’ terms of use and privacy policies, the research shows the growing types of data taken: in Spotify’s case, photos, location, voice data, and personal information like payment details are being collected.
