How to Make Your Venmo Information Private
More people than you may realize can access your private information on the popular peer-to-peer payment app
More people than ever now use Venmo to quickly and easily make or receive online payments. But a Consumer Reports investigation found that many people—even billionaires, sitting members of Congress, top White House aides, Wall Street and Silicon Valley CEOs, and celebrity actors, musicians, and athletes—leave a lot of their data public on the app. That could leave them vulnerable to scams and cyber attacks.
Even for the tech-savvy, changing privacy settings on a payment app like Venmo can be surprisingly tricky. It’s often not as simple as tapping a single button. For business reasons, nearly every digital wallet requires its users to manually set their privacy settings to private.
Here’s a visual explainer on how to turn on the private setting on your Venmo payment history and future transactions.
To Make Future Venmo Payments Private
1. Go to the “Me” tab at the lower right-hand corner.
2. Tap the “Settings” gear icon at the top right-hand corner.
To Make Past Venmo Payments Private
1. Go to the “Me” tab.
2. Tap the “Settings” gear icon at the top right-hand corner.
3. Tap “Privacy.”
4. Under “Past Transactions,” choose “Change All to Private.”
5. A small window at the bottom will appear, asking you to confirm your selection. Click on “Change All to Private” again.
6. Another window will appear that reads: “All of your past transactions will be set to private. It may take a few minutes for all of your transactions to update to the newest audience settings.” Press OK.
Who Can See What You Do on Venmo? You’d Be Surprised.
Even celebrities, politicians, and business leaders unintentionally leave their data public on the app, a CR investigation found.
To Make Venmo Contact Lists Private
1. Go to the “Me” tab.
2. Tap the “Settings” gear icon at the top right-hand corner.
3. Tap “Privacy.”
4. Tap “Friends List.”
5. Select “Private” and, to ensure your information doesn’t show up anywhere else, make sure the “Appear in other users’ friends lists” button on the same screen is turned off and deselected.
Editor’s Note: Our work on privacy, security, AI, and financial technology issues is made possible by the vision and support of the Ford Foundation, Omidyar Network, Craig Newmark Philanthropies, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
