Disable Geolocation Access on Venmo to Avoid Disclosing Your Address
We have already told you to change the settings on Venmo private, that the whole world did not know to whom of your friends you pester, to return your movie tickets with last weekend.
But this may not be enough for your actions in the application to be truly confidential. It is still being passed on to data collection companies, according to USA Today technical columnist Jefferson Graham. Graham discovered that data collection company Braze obtained records of his Venmo transactions, including his GPS location and recipient name.
If you are a regular person using an application like Venmo, you have no idea that this information is being transmitted. Graham worked with Disconnect, a security firm, to determine what information his applications share with third parties. Graham thought that setting his transactions to “private” was enough, but while this option prevents the app from sharing your transactions with your peers and the general public, it doesn’t stop Venmo from doing anything else.
You should also take the time to go into your phone’s settings and turn off location access for Venmo. This still allows you to use the app without a hitch.
In case you’re wondering, here’s what Venmo has to say about how it uses your personal information. Pay attention to the last item on the list of things that seem quite normal, such as personalizing your user experience:
If you choose to share your geolocation information, we will use that information to improve the security of the Services, and we may use this information to provide you with options, features, offers, advertisements, search results, or other options for a specific location. content.
According to Venmo’s privacy section on the same page, you cannot restrict much of the other information Venmo shares with third parties:
When you download apps, there is an understandable trade-off: in order to use this company’s product or service, you will have to share some of your personal data, especially when it comes to financial transactions.
But a good rule of thumb to follow is to visit the settings of each app to restrict access to information outside of that company as much as possible. If you do not need access to geolocation, disable it. Nothing else to keep secret, but you can at least give it a try.