Apple Music Users Report Seeing Other People's Playlists in Their Libraries
Apple Music appears to be sparking serious privacy concerns for some users, with multiple complaints on Reddit about other people's playlists randomly appearing in their music libraries in the Music app.
Redditor adh1003, who contacted MacRumors about the issue, has compiled several reports from users complaining about the appearance of strange playlists in the app that they do not recognize. MacRumors has since found other posts on Reddit from users reporting the same behavior.
In some cases, unknown playlists have been merged with users' existing playlists. In other cases, users' playlists have gone missing or been replaced by unrecognized ones.
Some users have expressed concerns that their Apple accounts have been hacked, but the more likely cause of the issue is an unspecified problem with Apple's iCloud server. Unsyncing and then re-syncing iCloud for the Music app (Settings -> Apple ID -> iCloud -> Show All) has worked for a handful of users, but not all.
Based on reports, the appearance of unrecognized playlists is only occurring in the Music app for iPhone, with the Music app for macOS remaining unaffected. User reports regarding the issue date back to mid February, suggesting the problem could be related to the release of iOS 16.3.1, which included a bug fix for iCloud settings.
Some users have contacted Apple support to resolve the issue but none have reported success. We've contacted Apple about the problem and will update this article if we learn more.
The issue is reminiscent of another iCloud bug that occurred last year in which some users reported videos and images from strangers appearing in their Photos library.
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Top Rated Comments
This hasn't exactly happened to me in Music, but I've seen it happen where even after erasing an old device, the new user can see certain remnants even after restarting, such getting a 2FA notice, a random notification/password request, or having access to an iCloud Shared Photo Album until linking/creating anew. It's clear that a factory reset doesn't completely nuke the device of all traces of old account, with some pointers still server-side. (i.e. the device is reset, but it's still linked to an iCloud account from the user's iCloud page, or server-side device list.)
On a bug note. I have not seen this but there have been a few times I have not received pictures people send through iMessage.
Although, if we're talking about iCloud bugs, one time a few years ago my spouse sent me a picture of something through iMessage and I ended up with a random photo of someone’s child. I tried to figure why she sent me a random photo of a random child but quickly realized it was an iMessage/iCloud error. Bits crossed in the sending. Someone else likely received the image she sent — a picture of something at a store. That was the most random iCloud-related bug I've ever seen. It's mostly just funny because it was harmless (cute child playing and I quickly deleted the image) but it could have been a major issue if the crossed images had been more sensitive or private.
Well, plenty of odd playlists and strange albums. But I’m to blame for all of it.
It’s become a major annoyance because I get anywhere from 40-60 Watch notifications a day that I left an Item behind and I cannot stop the notifications from happening.