Image by Warren R.M. Stuart (licensed CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
While mobile applications don’t always offer the level of privacy and security that consumers expect, many top peer-to-peer (P2P) payment services raise no major privacy and security red flags, according to new research by Consumer Reports, Ranking Digital Rights, and Disconnect, a privacy software manufacturer.
Consumer Reports rated five mobile P2P applications—Apple Pay, Facebook P2P Payments, Square Cash, Venmo, and Zelle stand-alone service—based on a set of privacy and security standards, including how well they authenticate payments to prevent fraud, secure user data, and protect privacy.
While Apple Pay earned top marks for its payment authentication and privacy measures, all five applications were rated as “good enough to use,” according to Consumer Reports.
The ratings are based on a set of criteria called the Digital Standard, developed in partnership with leading privacy, security, and human rights organizations, including Ranking Digital Rights. This P2P rating is the latest round of collaborative research and testing that uses the Digital Standard to evaluate applications and internet-connected products that make up what is often called the “internet of things.” The goal of the Digital Standard is to encourage companies to prioritize privacy and security and to help consumers make informed choices.
Here are some highlights from the findings:
- Apple Pay rated the highest on data privacy, as Apple states that it does not store consumers’ original credit card numbers and limits information sharing to a few service-specific purposes.
- While all five P2P apps enabled users to set up PINs or two-factor authentication for an additional level of security, Apple Pay was the only service that requires authentication for each payment by default.
- All the P2P apps provided data encryption and most disclosed that they implement internal safeguards to secure data.
To read more about the findings and how the different apps performed, see the full report here.
