Turn off location access in Venmo now

Venmo has been in the news lately and not for good reasons, at least not for Venmo. Along with the recommendation to change your settings to private you also need to do another very important thing in settings too.

Even changing your settings to private won’t protect your privacy. Your data is still being shared with data collection companies, according to a USA Today tech columnist, Jefferson Graham. He also said that Braze, a data collection company, received records of his Venmo transactions, including GPS location and name of the recipient.

Most people do not have any idea that this info is being shared. Jeferson Graham worked with Disconnect, a Security Firm, to examine what info his apps were sharing with 3rd parties. Graham thought that setting his profile to private was enough, that option stops the app from sharing transactions with your peers and the general public, it doesn’t stop Venmo from sharing with anyone else.

If you’re curious, here’s what Venmo says about how it uses your personal information. Pay attention to the last bullet point on a list of stuff that seems pretty normal, like personalizing your user experience:

If you elect to share your Geolocation Information, we will use this information to enhance the security of the Services and we may use this information to provide you with location-specific options, functionality, offers, advertising, search results, or other location-specific content.

So here is what you do to protect your data and privacy.

iPhone Instructions

• Go into Settings on your iPhone
• Then Navigate to Privacy on iPhone
• Then tap on Location Services
• Swipe down and select Venmo
• Then select Never under ‘Allow location access’

iPad Instructions

• Go into Settings on your iPad
• Then Navigate to Privacy on iPad
• Then tap on Location Services
• Swipe down and select Venmo
• Then select Never under ‘Allow location access’

Android Phone Instructions

• Go in to Settings on you Android Phone
• Then select Lock Screen & Security
• Under ‘Privacy’ select Location
• Select ‘App-level permissions’
• Then find Venmo and tap on it to turn it off

Android Tablet Instructions

• Go in to Settings on you Android Phone
• Then select Lock Screen & Security
• Under ‘Privacy’ select Location
• Select ‘App-level permissions’
• Then find Venmo and tap on it to turn it off