[kictanet] Financial transactions should be private by default

Mon Jul 1 07:13:46 EAT 2019

Creepy and shocking!!!

Giving Fintechs a bad name and opening the floodgates for Regulatory
Oversight.

This is such a rookie mistake that one wonders whether it was intentional.

@Alice Munyua <alice at munyua.com> , do we know what has happened after the
public outcry?

Regards

*Ali Hussein*

*Principal*

*AHK & Associates*

Tel: +254 713 601113

Twitter: @AliHKassim

Skype: abu-jomo

LinkedIn: http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim
<http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim>

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On Sun, Jun 30, 2019 at 3:24 AM Alice Munyua via kictanet <
kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote:

>
>
> Venmo is a massively popular app for personal financial transactions – the
> problem is Venmo doesn’t think those transactions should be private.
> [image: Mozilla]
> <https://click.e.mozilla.org/?qs=244ce50b3a9d1bb243fcf70b42c506fe194cc9e76b6edec4e07f89b89b3b6bf60bdcc1bbc83ba0947973b02f8bd33e2fb407b111d08c921d>
>
>
>
> [image: Venmo]
> <https://click.e.mozilla.org/?qs=244ce50b3a9d1bb21039c920c1558a3cfda9de54ace28387ca853cb488363ae5172396bdba5a2cf63097bc030224cec7ce68457de8bbb18f>
>
> Hey,
>
> 🍕🥓🍩 = 💸
>
> What if all your guilty pleasures were on display for the whole world to
> see? If you use Venmo, a popular app that lets people send and collect
> money, there's a good chance they already are.
>
> *Venmo's settings are public by default, so millions of transactions are
> available for anyone on the web to find.*
>
> Everyone knowing who you shared pizza with last week might seem innocuous
> enough, but with millions of transactions publicly available there is a
> huge risk that this data could be used for nefarious purposes. Venmo has
> transformed the way Americans settle personal debts, and with as many as an
> estimated 10 million monthly users, how it handles privacy could be the
> standard for other financial apps.1
>
> Sign our petition to tell Venmo that financial transactions should be
> private
> <https://click.e.mozilla.org/?qs=244ce50b3a9d1bb290d360ab936bd69cd0062a0608fbb20e2601a821f1f9a1d8d48b626ca5eee3a94c5b807d9b21bfbff617a4b1caa9ac1e>
> .
>
> Last year, researcher and Mozilla Fellow Hang Do Thi Duc exposed the
> serious implications of Venmo's settings by uncovering how countless Venmo
> users' drug habits, junk food vices, personal finances, and fights with
> significant others are available for all to see.2
>
> Under pressure from the slew of news covering Do Thi Duc's work and a
> Mozilla campaign calling for the company to change its public by default
> setting, Venmo made a few small changes and restricted the rate at which
> information could be pulled from its public database of transactions
> (called an API).3 This change means that sensitive data about your
> transactions can still be extracted exactly the same way, it will just take
> a bit longer.4
>
> *This is not a fix. The privacy of Venmo users remains at risk. Last week,
> news surfaced that one researcher was able to collect data on 7 MILLION new
> transactions.*5 With this renewed focus again exposing Venmo's terrible
> privacy practices, we have the opportunity to push the company to finally
> fix the problem and make privacy its default setting.
>
> Will you join 25,000 privacy advocates who have already signed our
> petition telling Venmo to make financial transactions private? Click here
> to add your name
> <https://click.e.mozilla.org/?qs=244ce50b3a9d1bb2df0775b29b6bc2b8ef2b343c8c4fe5d3daf11ed3e34abdfe68445bef8c3b49671da65fb587131cc74b85d444bc205653>
> .
>
> Thank you for helping hold Venmo accountable,
> The Mozilla Team
>
> References:
>
>    1. Kaya Yurieff, "A researcher studied a year of public Venmo
>    transactions. Here's what she learned,
>    <https://click.e.mozilla.org/?qs=244ce50b3a9d1bb22e6ca148d85e5bb99b677f64153446517323dd4cba73d5d38ed60d0c940852e13653e08df949f0fac2d3ee5442398993>"
>    CNN Money, July 17, 2018.
>    2. Olivia Solon, "Venmo: how the payment app exposes our private lives,
>    <https://click.e.mozilla.org/?qs=244ce50b3a9d1bb2fe1fcad115c7975bfbc835356833228970021a3651b3a97df1c73d73da7c16088d8b4cd80171a16f4d7cec99e00e7e22>"
>    The Guardian, July 17, 2018.
>    3. Sarah Perez, "Mozilla pushes PayPal to make Venmo transactions
>    private by default,
>    <https://click.e.mozilla.org/?qs=244ce50b3a9d1bb2cf2b1409e1850af8f67983f31f2faf7dbfd9b101f39fe0becfe6d045fe4123a018c3ca3e97db79100ae8a73f087ed68c>"
>    TechCrunch
>    4. Dell Cameron, "Millions of Transactions Scraped in Latest
>    Demonstration of Venmo's Absurd Privacy Policy,
>    <https://click.e.mozilla.org/?qs=244ce50b3a9d1bb234dd55146ac213b9c6d004ff460d401af52ef2dc55d9bfbf0dc9e23e7d0f71a94e3f83e069a81cd4a295f68a2b89fcda>"
>    Gizmodo, June 17, 2019.
>    5. Ibid.
>
>
>
>
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