Shazam

up:: MiniDECs from 2022

1. The organization

The subject of this abbreviated data-ethical consultation is the company Shazam, which is owned by Apple Inc. Shazam is an application for mobile phones or computers that can identify music, movies and television shows. How it works: Shazam captures the sound that is present in the area through the microphone of the telephone or computer of the user and then consults the database and uses an algorithm for recognition of the song or movie.

2. The AI technologies Employed

Shazam Apple Inc. uses two main algorithms, namely a sound-wave algorithm and a database search algorithm. Shazam uses the sound-wave algorithm to capture a 'song' - in specific, it captures the sound waves near the user of the Shazam-app. These soundwaves are stored digitally in a byte array, thereby creating some sort of fingerprint of the sounds. This array is then implemented into the database search algorithm. This algorithm searches for matching 'fingerprints' in Shazam's own sounds of songs and movies database. All matched songs of the database are sorted in descending order of likelihood and the most probable song is presented to the user as the 'recognition of the sound'. Shazam has created its own music database, which grows daily through deals with other music services whose employees seek out new songs, and independent musicians that submit their own music to Shazam.

3. Ethical concerns

First of all, Shazam Apple Inc. states that it does not share its data with third parties. This should mean that the risk for unethical dual-use of the data is relatively small, which is a good aim by the company. Furthermore, Shazam Apple Inc. gives its users the possibility to remove the data of the user completely if this user is actively asking this of the company. In addition, the Shazam app interface shows enough information, such as 'tap to shazam' before it activates its data gathering for the movie or song search. Also, Shazam does not save or send audio samples, it only collects the digital fingerprint that is made.

However, there are still some ethical concerns that can be raised with this technology. Below I will discuss some of these, namely a concern raised with the geolocation information collected by information Sha a concern about the microphone usage and a concern about the collaborative partners of Shazam.

Location collection

The Shazam Apple Inc. app collects information about the location of the users. Shazam uses this for example to show which songs are shazamed the most in what part of the world. Lists containing the top 50 most Shazamed tracks are updated every day for hundreds of cities around the world. However, location gathering is considered one of the most sensitive forms of data collection as it can reveal private activities rather quickly. For example, location tracking can reveal the place someone lives (if this is the place someone is home most nights), can reveal if this person is going to church or not, it can reveal if this person went to an abortion clinic etc. As Shazam asks users for its permission to track their location, Shazam is not in breach with privacy violations by the GDPR. However, as there has been multiple research questioning to what extent people know what they have given permission to, this location tracking is still an ethical concern. As the function of Shazam does not improve with the collection of location data, it is not necessary for song recognition, it might be better to remove this collection completely from the Shazam app.

Microphone usage

One ethical concern raised by Shazam Apple Inc. is that of the ongoing activation of the microphone of an Apple Computer. On a cellphone, Shazam only uses the microphone if the user has activated the listening function through the Shazam button, however, on Apple Computers, Shazam never turns the microphone off, even when a user has turned the Shazam app 'off'. So, even when a user thinks Shazam is not activated, the Shazam app (once installed on the computer) still 'listens' the microphone of the computer. This creates ethical concerns regarding not only privacy but also transparency as the design does not explicitly let the user know it is still listening in the background. Shazam stated that there is no privacy issue as the audio is only processed when the user actively turns the app 'on'. According to Shazam the only function of the microphone usage is to be able to capture a song as quickly as possible instead of first having to initialize the mic, thereby risking being too slow to capture the song. However, activation of the microphone without users' explicit consent or knowledge still raises ethical concerns as users might see this as a privacy violation.

Third parties

As said previously, Shazam Apple Inc. states to not share data with third parties. However, since Shazam has been taken over by Apple since 2018, Shazam does share data with Apple and the data policy of Shazam is now aligned with the privacy policy of Apple. This raises an ethical concern as it creates a dominant position for Apple and Apple music: Apple could use the data gathered from users of Shazam to try and encourage or manipulate users to switch to its music streaming service, Apple Music. In fact, Shazams interface is now designed so that if you play a recognized song in the app, it will try to start to play this song via Apple Music. This take over might have gone unnoticed by Shazam users, thereby raising the risk that people share their data with Apple without them knowing. In short, the statement by Shazam that it does not share any data with third parties might give people the wrong idea, for this it would be better to explicitly state the companies that Shazam is working with, including Apple, and thereby explicitly stating what data is also used by Apple.

4. Recommendations

To address the concerns highlighted above, I will give some recommendations for possible improvements that Shazam could make. First of all, since location tracking is one of the most sensitive data collections there is and since the main function of Shazam does not improve with location tracking, it would be good to remove this data collection altogether from the Shazam app. Furthermore, Shazam should either make the constant usage of a user's computer microphone explicit to the user or it should also remove this function.
Removing this means that Shazam starts up a bit slower as it needs to first initialize the microphone, thereby increasing the risk that a song is over before Shazam could record it. However, the consequences of removing this do not outbalance the improvement in privacy: The amount of speed lost will probably be minimal and multiple research has stated that people will feel uncomfortable with an always-on microphone function as it breaches their privacy. Therefore, I would recommend that Shazam activates the computer microphone in the same way as the microphone on the telephone, namely, only with an active act by the user. Lastly, as said before, Shazam states it does not share its data with third parties, thereby making it seem that there is no unethical dual-uas of the data. However, since Shazam is bought by Apple and therefore works together with Apple Music, this statement should be elaborated a bit. It would be good if the information that Shazam does share with Apple and Apple music would be made explicit in the statement. The statement that Shazam does not share its data is a bit blunt and might give people the wrong idea. Elaborating the statement would make Shazam more transparent.