Tidal investigates security breach, denies data manipulation

Tidal investigates security breach, denies data manipulation

Tidal CEO Richard Sanders has said the streaming platform is “aggressively” investigating a data breach.

It follows reports in Norwegian newspaper Dagens Næringsliv alleging data manipulation on listener data. The report cited analysis of hard drive data that suggested inflated numbers.

Norwegian collection society Tono has reportedly filed an official police complaint against Tidal.

As well as denying the claims in the Norwegian paper, Sanders said Tidal was taking measures to protect its data security.

“Although we do not typically comment on stories we believe to be false, we feel it is important to make sure that our artists, employees, and subscribers know that we are not taking the security and integrity of our data lightly, and we will not back down from our commitment to them,” he said.

“When we learned of a potential data breach we immediately, and aggressively, began pursuing multiple avenues available to uncover what occurred. This included reporting it to proper authorities, pursuing legal action, and proactively taking steps to further strengthen our stringent security measures that are already in place. Additionally, we have engaged an independent, third party cyber-security firm to conduct a review of what happened and help us further protect the security and integrity of our data.” 

Sanders added: “We are proud of the hard work, devotion to our artist driven mission, and tremendous accomplishments of our over one hundred employees in Norway and 50 more in the United States. We look forward to sharing with them, and all of our partners, the results of the review once completed.”

Tidal had previously reported that Kanye West’s The Life Of Pablo was streamed 250 million times in its first 10 days, while Beyonce’s Lemonade was streamed 306 million in 15 days. 

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