Samsung Pay now lets you opt out of selling your data
If you’ve been using Samsung Pay’s mobile payment platform for some time now, are you aware that the OEM is actually selling your data to their partners? Well, if you didn’t know, you probably do now as opening your app will lead you to a new Privacy Control settings. The good news is that you will now be able to opt-out of their apparently default settings of allowing Samsung to let their partners use your data for advertising purposes most likely.
An XDA Developers post shared that opening up your Samsung Pay will give you a pop-up leading to the privacy control settings. It’s actually strange as most users probably didn’t know that they had privacy settings or that they needed one. In any case, going to this section will now give you the option to toggle off the “Do Not Sell” switch. Doing so will prevent them from selling whatever data you use on Samsung Pay to any of their partners.
The main reason probably that Samsung added this option is because of the California Consumer Privacy Act which gives residents three basic rights: access to personal information, deletion of personal information if they choose to, and the ability to stop any company from selling your personal information. While Samsung isn’t actually required to share this with residents outside California, it seems they’re doing it all the same, at least for those in the United States.
They will probably eventually highlight the benefits of letting them use your data, like personalized features, advanced notifications if there are sales and promos relevant to you, etc. But if your priority is of course protecting your personal data, then having these value adding features should not be that important to you and so you should immediately toggle it off.
If you’re not seeing the pop-up message on your Samsung Pay, go to the menu and look for “Privacy Controls”. You will see the Do Not Sell part down the page and you will need to toggle it on then tap yes when it asks “Enable Do Not Sell?”
