Popular mobile music identification app Shazam has began rolling out an ‘auto’ feature to tag any music playing at anytime effectively turning your phone into a life listening device.

The app now has the option to run in the background and pick up any audio be it from your usual music listening times to video games sessions, adverts on Youtube or even during your favourite TV shows. You could say this is a grab at  a whopping amount of personal data but Shazam have eased it onto users with the ability to opt-in and included a countdown disable.

Although this may be a godsend for some – I know i’ve had to juggle my phone during a killer track whilst driving (" target="_blank">John Stewart – Gold), it’s harder to understand why Shazam want to soak up so much information for the user? Currently the app works perfectly in identifying a song you choose to recognise during a DJ set or casually on the radio.

One thing we worry about is the results possibly skewing the companies most searched tracks (Most Searched Tracks In Ibizia) and prediction charts (Artists To Watch In 2014). If your Shazams ‘auto’ feature is switched on and its picking up commercial radio which is listened to by hundreds of thousands, that’s obviously going to chart tracks that are being forced on the radio versus what people are genuinely choosing to identify.

With Shazam having such close ties to iTunes and more recently Beatport, perhaps the company aims to push more popular songs which in turn means more sales through the app which flows through as additional commission.

At this stage we’d personally have the function switched off, but hey, each to their own.

source: FACT