PSA: Don't Be Like JD Vance And Leave Your Venmo Public

Would you want your Venmo friends list to be public for all to see?

That was the situation in which Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), Donald Trump’s vice presidential running mate, found himself this week.

Venmo, owned by PayPal, is a peer-to-peer payment app. In a new report from Wired, the magazine said it uncovered 211 political operatives, tech executives, Yale Law School graduates, people linked to Project 2025 ― a 920-page policy blueprint that would radically restructure the U.S. government ― and others on Vance’s friends list.

Venmo gives each user the ability to control their friends list and see transactions among these connections, or to make them visible only to the user and the recipient. But the default settings on Venmo make these details public.

Wired reported that the names on Vance’s friends list appear to be from his real-life contacts ― highly sensitive information that can pose a security risk if exposed.

Jordan Libowitz, the vice president of communications for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told Wired that “the more personal data that is public about someone the more points of pressure or influence there are on that person.”

Having someone on your friends list does not necessarily mean you’ve exchanged money with them. When you sign up for Venmo, it will ask forpermission to access the contacts on your phone. If you agree, these will get added to your friends list on the app.

Nonetheless, your Venmo friends list, as well as your transactions, can give strangers embarrassingly revealing details about who you interact with on a regular basis, or who you consider a close contact.

You may not be a politician running for office, but you might still want your Venmo account and list of