The Daily Mail reported on May 14 that cyber sleuths claimed that day to have used the Venmo app itself to locate Biden’s Venmo account, in addition to discovering a network of contacts at Biden’s home and work.
The cyber hunt began with a quote from a New York Times story. A White House aide said Biden sometimes used Venmo to send money to his grandchildren. Using the app’s built-in search tool and public friends feature, digital sleuths at Buzzfeed News were able to map out the Biden family’s network, including grandchildren, senior White House officials and their contacts. It took only a few minutes, they said.
After contacting the White House for comment on the matter, all contacts on Biden’s Venmo account were deleted.
According to digital campaigners, the ease with which the world’s most powerful man was able to be tracked highlights the privacy vulnerability of Vemo, a popular peer-to-peer payment app.
Venmo is a peer-to-peer cash transfer app that allows users to pay and request money from each other, and friends use it to split bills, share the cost of a cab ride home or manage other small expenses.
Founded in 2010 by two roommates at the University of Pennsylvania, Venmo features include a social networking element that allows users to see their friends’ transactions and contact lists.
In 2013, Venmo’s parent company was acquired by PayPal. Since 2016, merchants have been able to accept Venmo as a payment method.
Privacy campaigners have long expressed concerns about Venmo. The program’s default setting, which makes transactions public, also has no way to set a friend’s list to private.
The new digital technology has long been a headache for those protecting presidents or high-profile politicians. A hacker once got into Trump’s Twitter account by guessing his password.
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