EPIC, Coalition Urge Spotify to Abandon Speech-Recognition Technology

In a letter to Spotify, EPIC and a coalition of over 100 recording artists, 69 non-profit organizations, and 10 prominent individuals urged the streaming service to publicly commit not to explore a newly-patented voice-recognition feature. Spotify's new patent would allow the company to identify individuals' "emotional state, gender, age, or accent" to recommend music. The coalition letter identified major concerns with the potential technology including emotional manipulation, discrimination, massive privacy violations, and increased inequality within the music industry. Spotify recently stated that the company has not implemented the technology, and claims to have "no plans" to do so. EPIC leads a campaign to Ban Face Surveillance and through the Public Voice Coalition gathered support from over 100 organizations and experts from more than 30 countries.