As cool as you might think your Apple Music or Spotify playlist title is, you probably don’t want any random user finding out that your hiking playlist is exclusively made up of the Lord of the Rings soundtrack. Unfortunately, some Apple Music users on Reddit have reported a very strange bug where their playlists are being modified or shared without their consent.
These users are saying that, without any input themselves, songs are being added to or deleted from their Apple Music playlists with no notification. Other users have claimed that random playlists, presumably from other users, are being added to their accounts. One Reddit user shared a picture showing a playlist titled “Spanish” was added to their account without their input. Another user who goes by illegallegend said they found multiple unwanted playlists added to their account. After they signed out and back in, they had to redownload all their songs.
MacRumors first reported on the issue, and noted that the cause might lie with the iCloud server. Based on the Reddit threads, the issue seems contained to the Apple Music app on iPhones, while macOS devices remain unaffected. It’s a strangely similar problem to a noted bug with ChatGPT, where users were able to see the chat titles of other users. ChatGPT creator OpenAI said the bug was caused by third party open source software, though it had to temporarily disable the user history feature to fix it.
Gizmodo reached out to Apple for comment, but we did not immediately hear back. If reports are true and users’ playlists are being modified and shuffled around without their input, it could present some security concerns for users’ accounts. Technically, if someone else winds up with your playlist and you didn’t want them to have it, that indicates a data leak. That said, we don’t know if the playlists that are getting shared or merged were initially marked as private. Some users are worried that their accounts have been hacked, but that’s likely not the case. A similar issue from late last year saw users finding photos from strangers in their iCloud photo libraries after a simple bug impacted the Windows version of the app.
Users who have contacted the company said that they have not yet received word about if this problem is being addressed. Apple recently had to release a patch for its Safari browser after researchers found a bug that could reveal users’ personal data and browsing history. Sure, music playlists don’t have the same threat as a users’ browser data, but nobody should have to fear that their account data is being somehow catapulted onto other users’ apps.
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