![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() There is no setting to make this information private, which means it can provide a window into someone’s personal life that could be exploited by anyone - including trolls, stalkers, police, and spies. Even if a Venmo account is set to make payments private, its friend list remains exposed. While many critics have focused on how the app makes all transactions public by default, Venmo’s friend lists are arguably a larger privacy issue. Privacy advocates and journalists have warned about Venmo’s privacy problems for years, yet the PayPal-owned app has persisted with features that can place people - including the president of the United States - at risk. We’re consistently evolving and strengthening the privacy measures for all Venmo users to continue to provide a safe, secure place to send and spend money.”īy late Friday night, the Venmo accounts tied to the president and first lady Jill Biden were no longer online. Customers always have the ability to make their transactions private and determine their own privacy settings in the app. A White House spokesperson did not have an immediate comment.Īfter this story was published, a Venmo spokesperson told BuzzFeed News: “The safety and privacy of all Venmo users and their information is always a top priority, and we take this responsibility very seriously. The president’s transactions are not public, and BuzzFeed News is not identifying the usernames for the accounts mentioned in this story due to national security concerns.Īfter BuzzFeed News reached out to the White House for this story, all the friends on the president’s Venmo account were removed. In the process, BuzzFeed News found nearly a dozen Biden family members and mapped out a social web that encompasses not only the first family, but a wide network of people around them, including the president's children, grandchildren, senior White House officials, and all of their contacts on Venmo. On Friday, following a passing mention in the New York Times that the president had sent his grandchildren money on Venmo, BuzzFeed News searched for the president’s account using only a combination of the app’s built-in search tool and public friends feature. BuzzFeed News found President Joe Biden’s Venmo account after less than 10 minutes of looking for it, revealing a network of his private social connections, a national security issue for the United States, and a major privacy concern for everyone who uses the popular peer-to-peer payments app. ![]()
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January 2023
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