The news has clanged loudly lately about U.S. National Security advisor Mike Waltz and the public display of his Friends on Venmo. Forget for a moment the national security risk for our Stars and Stripes. Let’s talk about Venmo's danger to you.
If you're on Venmo, is your “Friends” list private? What about your transactions?
Does it matter?
Yeah. Big time. Which is why after journalists contacted the White House, Waltz immediately turned off access to the contacts associated with his Venmo account.
Be like Mike: Make your Venmo private
The fact is, who your Venmo friends are and your financial transactions reveal a whole lot about you. Good ol’ Mike had journalists from FOX News and CNN, a known conspiracy theorist and more politicians than you could wag a finger at listed as his Venmo contacts. While at least Waltz had the good sense to keep their transactions private (makes you curious, though, doesn’t it?), his Venmo revealed connections among key political players and provided soft targets bad actors could potentially use as stepping stones to bigger ones.
To be fair, Venmo normalized making your financial transactions public way back in the early 2010s. Its default settings have always automatically made names, dates and notes open to all unless the user changes this manually. I wouldn't be surprised if your Venmo Friends list was public, too.
A public Venmo directly impacts you.
It’s not just the inferences others make about you from your public account. Data from Venmo can be cross-referenced with info from Linked In, Facebook, Instagram and other sites allowing hackers and stalkers to build detailed profiles of you. It doesn’t require user permission or even the app itself for outsiders to download transactions through Venmo’s developer API.
When it’s set to public, your Friends list on Venmo provides relationship mapping and leaves you vulnerable to doxxing (a bully pretends to be you in an embarrassing way), harassment (speaks for itself) and phishing attacks (those emails, texts and voicemails asking for passwords, account information and other critical data that aren’t actually from Walmart, AT&T and Target).
And what do those 💵 💊 👀 mean in the notes? You risk emoji misunderstandings that can lead to insinuation and innuendo for nosy acquaintances, prospective employers, and law enforcement officers.
Curious about others?
Follow the rabbit trail, and you’ll learn all kinds of things about your Venmo friends, their friends, and their friends ad infinitum.
Start with your feed and tap on a person of interest. Scroll down and note the who and what clearly displayed. Select another person and another. Don’t forget to check out their list of friends to see everyone they are connected to on the app as well. Kinda creepy, no?
Snoop to your hearts content or until like me, you get weirded out by how much you can learn about someone. My two examples left me shook.
Example #1: Random woman
I selected a lady at random by typing letters into the search bar. To preserve her privacy (hahaha), let's call her by her initials DS. Boy did I learn a lot about her! The first transaction I saw was from DS to TS with this note:
🥳 Happy 44th Birthday Tania! Love, Grandpa & Gram ❤️
Wow. That’s a lot of information packed into one little note. Hope Tania’s not a Hollywood actress.
A little more voyeurism into this poor victim's account, and I now know DS lunches frequently with DV, attends many concerts, pays rent to GQ, and secures “allergy relief” from LM. It’s pretty easy to infer who is a close friend, roommate and other relationships.
In this exchange of money between friends and family, Venmo may provide the most accurate list of your actual social circle. Unlike Insta, TikTok or X, which generally have followers you know and those you don't, Venmo shows the people with which you exchange money.
It's also a walk down memory lane.
Example #2: Ex Boyfriend
Tiffany (not her real name) wondered if her ex-boyfriend had a girlfriend. She scanned his Venmo and the transaction list showed interactions mainly with men, with the sole female being a short lived flurry of activity five months earlier. On her ex's feed, Tiffany saw the exact same patterns from when they dated: pizza, live concert ticket, T-Bell (Taco Bell), car, pizza, beer pong, T-Bell, Malibu (car) insurance, pizza, shots, house (rent), Taco Bell, etc. Her take: He's just slumming with the boys.
People remember to unfriend and block each other on Facebook and Instagram but not Venmo. Our stalker “Tiffany” doesn’t have access to her ex’s Insta but she does to his Venmo history.
What does your Venmo account say about you?
Pull out your phone and look at your Venmo app. Who's on your Friends list? Who have you paid, how often and for what? If you haven’t made those transactions private, watch out. Any nosy person like me can find out a whole lot.
Having tiptoed into the world of spying, let’s race to lock our data down. Follow the lead of the United States National Security Adviser and make your Venmo private, too. It’s pretty easy, and you won’t need the Secret Service to do it.
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Down the Rabbit Hole
Curious? Check out my references.
Mike Waltz Left His Venmo Friends List Public - Dhruv Mehrotra and Tim Marksman - WIRED, March 26, 2025.
Millions of Venmo transactions scraped in warning over privacy settings - Zack Whittaker, TECH CRUNCH, June 16 2019.
Disclaimer: The above is solely intended for informational purposes and in no way constitutes legal advice or specific recommendations.