Payment apps are a convenient way to pay for your latest transaction without opening your wallet. However, reports came in that these apps are extracting your personal information without your permission. Information taken includes your religious beliefs, sexual orientation, political persuasion, medical history, friend and even personal address. Luckily, there are a few ways you can protect your data without uninstalling the app.
Payment apps are a necessity, especially in our current lifestyle. It is an incredibly handy alternative when paying for online transactions. Unfortunately, payment apps also get a lot of our personal information, such as name, birthday and address as verification. However, these apps are also extracting more data than you provided.
Three of the most popular payment apps used are Cash App, PayPal, and Venmo. Here are the details of the data their apps collect and how to disable them safely without uninstalling them, per Mashable.
Cash App
Active since 2013, Cash App is one of the top user choices when monitoring digital monetary assets, including cryptocurrency and stocks. The app also has an interesting feature, where you can make more money by completing the tasks Cash App sometimes adds.
According to your previously "agreed" Cash App privacy policy, the app could pick up on your personal data, including your real name and email address. It also collects your location, IP address, device language and network provider often to determine if the system update falls on iOS or Android format. Lastly, the application mentioned that it tried to create user profiles based on your preferences, characteristics and behavior.
All the data the Cash App collects is quoted to be shared as anonymized information "within our group of companies or affiliates, or with service providers or other third parties." Unfortunately, CashApp never elaborated which third parties would receive your information.
To protect your data, it is better to avoid using the Cash App program and use other payment apps instead. If you need the Cash App, then read properly on their privacy policy and consider if you really agree to their conditions or not.
PayPal
As one of the oldest online payment methods, PayPal is an app widely used around the world. It offers services to save money, send money, invest money and even convert money across different currencies. After working faithfully over the years, it is unheard of that PayPal has a privacy breach, right?
PayPal offers better services by collecting some of their users' data. For example, it uses your mobile GPS location data and takes note of your IP address. Combining these two functions, PayPal actively tracks your location and purchases. Unfortunately, PayPal tells you in their privacy policy that it could use your data for their marketing purposes.
Remember that PayPal owns a lot of companies, including Xoom and Venmo. So these apps could actively send you newsletters and marketing content spam messages through your email!
To protect your data, only provide your necessary information. Also, do not use PayPal to send money to strangers. These strangers could still see your mailing address through the money 'receipt.'
Venmo
Venmo has a unique public-by default transaction system. This means you can send money to your friends' Venmo account and vice versa. The catch is, all Venmo payments are visible to the public. Venmo was built with the fun idea to share your financial transactions to the social world, like splitting up the payment for pizza among friends
Fortunately, you can change the app settings, making your transactions visibility exclusive to your friends or to only you. For iOS, head to "Settings," "Privacy," "Default Privacy Settings," and select "Private." Also, tap on your "Past Transactions" and "Change all to Private."
Use these tips to help improve your privacy when using any of these Payment Apps.
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