Venmo Privacy Policy

This is Venmo's privacy policy, explaining how the payment app collects your financial transaction history, location data, device information, and social connections — and shares that information with PayPal, business partners, and advertisers. The single most important thing to know is that Venmo transactions are public by default, meaning anyone can see who you pay and the memo notes you include unless you manually change your privacy settings to 'Private.' You can change your transaction visibility to private in the Venmo app under Settings > Privacy.

This document is Venmo's U.S. Privacy Statement governing the collection, use, disclosure, and retention of personal information by Venmo (a PayPal subsidiary) in connection with its peer-to-peer payment platform, operating under applicable U.S. financial privacy law including the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) and state consumer privacy statutes. The most significant obligations include Venmo's broad collection of financial transaction data, identity information, device/location data, and social network data, combined with extensive sharing of that data with PayPal affiliates, third-party partners, and marketing networks. Notable provisions include the default public visibility of Venmo transaction feeds (including payee identity and memo fields), which represents a significant departure from standard financial service privacy norms and creates reputational and financial exposure risk for users. The policy engages GLBA, CCPA/CPRA (California Civil Code §1798.100 et seq.), state money transmission regulations, and FTC Act Section 5 unfair/deceptive practices standards. Material compliance considerations include the adequacy of consent mechanisms for transaction feed visibility, the scope of data sharing with the PayPal corporate family, and CCPA opt-out rights for data sale/sharing that California residents must affirmatively exercise.