Stalkers using Spotify to track and harass victims: ‘My ex made an album about me and put my face on the cover’

Stalkers are using Spotify to track and harass their victims as experts warn the nature of stalking is “evolving” with technology.

Predators are using the music sharing app to upload harassing music about victims, create abusive playlists, track their listening habits, and attempt to communicate with them through song titles or changing their music remotely, The Independent has learned.

Figures obtained through Freedom of Information (FOI) requests shows at least 159 cases of stalking and harassment linked to Spotify between 2022 and June 2026, with cases rising year-on-year up to 2025.

In one instance, a female victim reported their ex-partner had uploaded an album of songs about them and used their face as an album cover as part of a campaign of harassment that included “bombarding” them with social media messages, handwritten letters, and even showing up at their address unannounced.

Victims also told police stalkers had remotely accessed their Spotify accounts to repeatedly change the music they are listening to, and including playing love songs and “derogatory music” in order to cause distress. The data showed suspects are also hacking into victims’ accounts, and using the app’s internal messaging service to communicate with victims who have blocked them on other platforms.

The cases represent a tiny proportion of the more than 632,574 stalking and harassment cases recorded by police over the last year. But experts said it demonstrates how technology is “increasingly” being used by abusers to stalk, harass, and control victims in digital spaces that are not designed for communication or tracking, and warned such cases are also often underreported. Spotify said it takes harassment and online abuse seriously and has a number of tools in place to allow people to block abusers and keep their accounts secure.

Emma Pickering, head of the tech-facilitated abuse team at domestic abuse charity Refuge, said stalking and harassment are “incredibly common tactics” used by perpetrators of domestic abuse to exert coercive control, and that the organisation is seeing the offences “evolve” through the use of technology.

She said the charity had encountered situations where perpetrators had remotely connected to victims’ smart speakers to play specific songs, and others where the app’s chat function had been used to send “harassing messages”.

It comes as a new report from the charity shows that one in five women in the UK has experienced online harms suggestive of stalking, monitoring, harassment or coercive control.

The joint report with End Violence Against Women (EVAW) draws on polling of 2,000 women and warns that harassment, abuse and exposure to misogynistic content, is now “widespread and deeply embedded in women’s online experiences”.

Of the women who reported experiencing online violence against women and girls (VAWG), 20 per cent said it was perpetrated by a former partner, rising to 25 per cent among 16-24 year-olds. The charity said the findings expose how online VAWG can form part of post-separation abuse, with perpetrators using digital spaces to “harass, abuse and exert control even after a relationship ends”.

“Increasingly, technology is being used to facilitate this kind of abuse – from social media and location-tracking apps to the misuse of a wide range of other digital spaces,” Ms Pickering told The Independent. “We know firsthand that this can include platforms which have not been designed for communication or tracking, such as music streaming apps.

She said preventing the emerging forms of harm “must start with addressing the misogyny” that underpins them, while “ensuring technology is developed with potential misuse in mind”. Preventing these emerging forms of harm must start with addressing the misogyny and VAWG that underpin them, while ensuring technology is developed with the potential misuse in mind.

The charity is calling on the government to require tech companies to embed the safety of women and girls into the design and development of their services through the indroduction of mandatory “safety by design” standards.

Spotify said its platform rules prohibit abuse and harassing behaviour, and that it takes actions against violations when reported to them. The platform added users can block unwanted interactions both within messages and more widely on the app.

A government spokesperson said the scale of online abuse is “totally unacceptable” and said it is taking “some of the boldest actions in the world” to protect women online.

“Platforms have a legal duty to remove illegal content, and Ofcom has our full backing to take robust action against those who fail to do so,” they added.

“We are also requiring that platforms remove non-consensual intimate images within 48 hours of it being reported and, in some cases, having senior executives face liability. Tech companies must use the tools at their disposal to protect women, or they’re complicit in normalising abuse against women and girls online.

“There is, clearly, more to do, and we will not stop until the UK has the gold standard of online spaces – safe, empowering and thriving.”