Hide Your Venmo Activity

Happy Monday, friends! Today’s post is 432 words and about 2 minutes to read. Let’s get to it!

What am I suggesting and why?

Hide your activity BY DEFAULT on Venmo (and any other payment app you use)! You may think you have nothing to hide in paying your friends for a meal or rent, but it actually says a lot about where you live, who you spend time with, how you spend that time, when you’re traveling, and what you spend money on among other things.

Duration: 5 Minutes
Ease: Very Easy
Cost: Free

You in? Let’s go:

In Venmo App (Best Option):

1. Open Venmo app.
2. Tap Me in the bottom menu.
3. On the top right, tap the Settings icon (looks like a gear).
4. Tap Privacy.
5. Under Default Privacy Settings, select Private.
6. Under More, tap Past Transactions.
7. Tap Change All to Private.

For Added Privacy:

1. Go back to Privacy > Location.
2. Deny app location permissions.
3. Go back to Privacy > Friends List.
4. Tap Private.
5. Toggle off Appear in other users’ friends lists.
6. Go back to Privacy > Friends & social.
7. Toggle off Phone Contacts.

On Venmo.com (Note: website is missing some app privacy settings):

1. Visit venmo.com.
2. Log in to your account.
3. In the left side menu, click Settings > Privacy.
4. Under Future payments, click Private.
5. Under Past payments, click Change to Private.

For Added Privacy:

1. In the left side menu under Settings, click Friends & Social.
2. Toggle off Phone contacts.
3. If you also use the Venmo mobile app, I recommend checking the “Added Privacy” steps above for the app since not all privacy settings are available on the web!

Dig Deeper

Venmo is Public by Default

Venmo is what we call “public by default,” this means Venmo shares your information openly and widely with networks beyond your own personal one by default, and you need to change settings to protect your privacy. Friends of friends can see your activity for example, and those folks may not even be friends of friends, they might just be people that have contacted someone you’ve contacted before. It’s messy, and you might be giving away more than you think.

Most importantly, Venmo honors the most restrictive privacy setting on a transaction. That means you’re also helping to protect your friends’ privacy when your transactions with them are private.

Learn More

• “Venmo: how the payment app exposes our private lives” The Guardian
• “Venmo privacy settings to change now” The Washington Post
• “Venmo Gets More Private—but It’s Still Not Fully Safe” Wired