Is Apple Music Safe to Use? (3 Things To Consider)

When users sign up for a service such as Apple Music they may have concerns about how safe it is to use.

In this article, we take a look at the 3 main safety issues that you should consider with Apple Music.

1. How Private is your Data & Can You Control What is Shared with Others?

Online privacy is a major consideration in the modern world and many users are keen to understand how and when our activity on an app is shared with others.

Apple Music has many ways in which users can connect with other users and share their musical tastes with their friends.

This social connectivity on music streaming services is a key way in which these services help engage the community and enhance a user’s experience.

In most cases, users are more than happy to accept these social features and share their music with others.

However, it’s important to understand precisely what you are sharing and how private your account is. The main way in which other users can see your activity on Apple Music is through your profile.

Here’s What you Need to Know About Apple Music Profiles:

• Apple Music allows users to create a personal ‘profile’
• Your Apple Music profile displays your username, profile picture and showcases the music you listen to.
• Profile pages will also display the users you follow and who follow you.
• Profiles can be found by searching via the search field in the Apple Music app.

Having a profile with Apple Music is the best way to share your musical tastes and connect with other users. This connectivity allows you to discover more music by following other users’ profiles and, moreover, engages you with a community that shares your passion for the same types of music you enjoy.

According to AppleInsider.com, the inclusion of a profile has greatly improved Apple Music’s service:

“The app feels more lively in the sense that you no longer have to ask what others are listening to, but you can now visit their profile and see for yourself.” 

Despite these benefits, some users may not feel comfortable with allowing the world to know what their favorite top hits are. Let’s face it, we all have our guilty pleasures when it comes to music and we may wish that information to stay private.

Thankfully, Apple Music does not make it mandatory for users to have a profile and, moreover, it is also possible to delete your profile at any time.

Additionally, users can customize their privacy settings to suit their needs and choose who has access to their profile.

Take a look at the 4 ways in which you can control your privacy with Apple Music.

Here’s How to Stop People Knowing What you’re Listening to on Apple Music:

If you’ve got an album on repeat that you love, but want to keep secret, then take these steps to ensure your privacy is protected:

1. Navigate to your personal profile in the Apple Music app.
2. Find the album, song, or playlist you wish to remain private.
3. Tap and hold the content.
4. Now select ‘Hide from Profile’

If you’ve decided that you want to ensure that your profile does not display any of the music that you listen to, then take the following steps instead:

1. Tap ‘Edit’ on your profile.
2. Scroll down to the bottom.
3. Now tap ‘turn off Listening To’
   • Android users will need to tap ‘Additional Privacy Settings’ to find this option.

Here’s How to Hide your Playlists on Apple Music:

New playlists that you create will be added to your personal profile, however, if you want to ensure that they stay private, then you can choose to hide them.

To do so, follow the steps below:

1. Navigate to your profile in the Apple Music app.
2. Tap ‘Edit’.
3. Choose the playlists that you wish to share and deselect any that you wish to be hidden.
4. The hit ‘Done’.

Here’s How to Block Another User from Accessing your Profile:

If you’ve decided that there is someone in particular whom you no longer wish to have the ability to view your profile, then take these steps to block them:

1. Navigate to your profile in the Apple Music app.
2. Find the person you wish to block within ‘Followers’ or ‘Following’
3. Tap the person and you will be brought to their profile page.
4. Tap the 3 dots to bring up more options.
5. Tap ‘Block’.
   • Blocked users cannot see your musical data or find your profile.

Here’s How to Delete your Profile Entirely from Apple Music:

If you’re no longer interested in the social aspects of Apple Music and want to delete your profile, then simply take these steps:

1. Tap ‘Edit’ on your profile.
2. Scroll down to the end.
3. Find and tap ‘Delete Profile’
   • Deleting your profile will not affect your Apple Music subscription.
   • Your personal Library and playlists will remain intact and unaffected.
   • Any playlists shared with friends will be removed from their devices.

Not everyone wants to have to delete their profile to retain their sense of privacy. In fact, many people are happy to share their Apple Music listening data with the people they care about.

However, users have noticed that they will get recommended to follow profiles of people they don’t know all that well.

Moreover, your own profile has the potential to be recommended to users who you may deem inappropriate followers, such as a professional contact or a boss.

The reason for this is due to the fact that, as AppleInsider.com explains:

“Apple Music will pull people’s profiles via their phone number or Facebook credentials that they have shared with the application.” 

Now the chances are that if you’ve added someone on Facebook as a friend, it won’t matter if they follow you on Apple Music. However, phone contacts can be a different matter entirely.

Apple Music checks through the contacts on your phone on a periodic basis to recommend new friends to connect with via your Apple Music profile.

However, Apple Music does not collect information such as full phone numbers or email addresses.

Apple Music is sent encrypted or shortened information about your contacts in order to recommend potential friends from the contacts stored on your phone.

If you do not want Apple Music to have access to this data whatsoever, then you can change this setting under ‘Account Settings’ and then choose to disable ‘Finding Friends with Apple ID’.

Apple Music does make use of algorithms that track your music and listening history; this is how it recommends music to you as the app learns what you like over time.

2. Can your Apple Music Account be Hacked?

Apple Music is a service in which users pay a monthly subscription. This means, as an Apple Music user, your account has a monetary value; it’s your key to access the enormous vault of music that Apple Music provides.

Your account, therefore, should be protected from being accessed by others.

Thankfully, Apple has done its best to ensure that users are protected and alerted to potential hackers.

For your Apple Music account to be accessed by somebody else, the hacker will need to know your Apple ID login information. This same information is used to log in to your Apple Music account – they’re one and the same.

However, the fact that your Apple ID and Apple Music login are linked allows you to receive notifications from Apple if anything strange happens with a log-in attempt:

• Apple will notify you if your Apple ID is used from a new device.
• Apple will send you an email to alert you that your Apple ID password or E-mail has been changed.
• You may receive notifications for purchases made on the app store that you didn’t make.

However, if you lose the ability to access your Apple Music account, then it means that your Apple ID has likely been compromised.

When considering how safe Apple Music is to use and how secure your account is from would-be hackers, it’s important to realize that your concerns should center around the security of your Apple ID.

It is crucial, therefore, that you take the steps to ensure that your Apple ID is protected. If your Apple ID is secure, then your Apple Music account is too.

Here are our Top Tips to Protect your Apple Music Account:

1. Do not divulge your Apple ID and password to anyone else.
2. Use a strong and complicated password.
3. Ensure you activate two-step authentication.
4. Input your security questions and relevant answers, but make them difficult to guess.
5. Contact Apple immediately if you notice any purchases made from the app store that were not authorized by yourself.

3. Will my Children be Exposed to Explicit Content?

Kids love music and so it’s no surprise that they will want to have access to a music streaming platform such as Apple Music. However, an important concern for parents will be working out whether the content on Apple Music is safe for their kids to listen to.

Apple Music has a massive collection of tracks, in fact, it’s over 100 million and counting. However, not all of those tracks will be suitable for a younger audience.

Parents have a right to limit what their children are exposed to, and the ability to control what music is listened to is a matter that Apple Music understands.

Nevertheless, there is no ‘child version’ of the Apple Music app. Apple Music provides the same service for all users. However, parents can change settings on Apple Music to prevent explicit content and cursing from being played by their kids.

If you want to ensure that explicit tracks are unavailable for playback, then follow the instructions found below.

Here’s How you can Prevent Explicit Songs on Apple Music (iOS Devices):

When it comes to iOS devices such as iPads and iPhones, the parental controls you need to adjust for Apple Music are not found in the app itself. Instead, you’ll need to make the changes to the device’s settings.

1. Tap ‘Settings’ followed by ‘Screen Time’
2. Now select ‘Content & Privacy Restrictions’
3. Switch the toggle ON to activate media restrictions.
4. Select ‘Content Restrictions’ followed by ‘Music, Podcasts, and News’
5. Now choose ‘Clean’
   • Selecting this option will block all content that has been marked as Explicit.
6. Secure these settings and prevent changes by heading back to ‘Settings’
7. Now tap ‘Screen Time’ followed by ‘Use Screen Time Passcode’
8. Enter your passcode.

Here’s How you can Prevent Explicit Songs on Apple Music (Mac or Windows):

1. Open ‘Preferences’ in either the Music app or iTunes.
2. Navigate to ‘Restrictions’.
3. Click on the check-box by explicit content in the ‘Restrict’ section.
4.  A pop-up window will ask for confirmation. Click ‘Restrict Explicit Content’
   • You can click the padlock symbol within your restrictions preferences settings to ensure that the administrator password is needed to make any changes.

Sources

How to use the hidden social features in Apple Music to help discovery

Apple Music & Privacy

See what friends are listening to in Apple Music on your iPhone, iPad or Android device

Apple Music Parental Controls: How to Block Explicit Songs