Overview

• The Panama Playlists website went live on July 30 after an anonymous operator scraped publicly available Spotify data since summer 2024 to compile listening habits of figures like JD Vance, Pam Bondi and Sam Altman.
• Five individuals, including New York Times journalist Mike Isaac and tech entrepreneur Palmer Luckey, confirmed their entries as accurate while journalist Kara Swisher disputed hers, attributing it to her wife’s Peloton music.
• The site claims to have collected not only public playlists but also live listening feeds and song play counts, revealing when and how often each track was played.
• Spotify’s default settings make all playlists public and do not apply privacy changes retroactively, requiring users to manually toggle each playlist to private to prevent exposure.
• With the operator’s identity still undisclosed and the site remaining online, legal experts and privacy advocates are urging users to review their Spotify settings to safeguard personal data.