![]() “Having my Venmo friend list being visible to everyone, I found it odd that they didn’t provide an option for people to make it private.”įor years, digital rights groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, security researchers, and journalists have warned that Venmo’s public friend lists were a privacy threat. “I’m glad Venmo is working quickly to fix this privacy flaw,” Wong said. There was also an option that apparently allowed her to hide her account from other people's friend lists.Īfter several tests, BuzzFeed News reporters could see some friend lists that had been set to private, suggesting the change may take some time to become fully functional. When she experimented with the feature, she told BuzzFeed News, she could toggle options to make her friend list visible to the public, to her friends on the app, or only to her. On Friday, Jane Manchun Wong, a software engineer who regularly exposes features being tested by companies like Facebook and Twitter before they are released, found that Venmo was building a way to allow people to make friend lists private and tweeted a screenshot. Two weeks ago, BuzzFeed News used public friend lists, which previously could not be made private, to find the president, the first lady, and members of their immediate family, showing how the app can put people at risk.Ī spokesperson for Venmo confirmed that the "hide friends" feature has been added and told BuzzFeed News, “We are enhancing our in-app controls providing customers an option to select a public, friends-only, or private setting for their friends list.” ![]() The move allows people to make their friend list private or restrict who can see it, adding a privacy feature to an app that digital rights groups and critics have called a security nightmare. Venmo, the mobile payments app owned by PayPal, is changing its privacy settings after a BuzzFeed News story uncovered President Joe Biden’s account earlier this month.
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