Why Does the Credit Card Machine Already Know My Email?
By Mary Keane, written with the help of AI
Have you ever swiped your credit card at a store, selected the option to get a receipt, and the machine magically knew your email address, even though you swear you’ve never been there before?
It’s not magic. It’s Stripe and Square.
These two popular payment processors (used by millions of small businesses) can associate your email address with your credit card. So if you’ve ever given your email to a vendor that uses Stripe or Square, the next time you use that same card at any vendor using the same processor, the machine may auto-populate your email address—even if you’ve never interacted with that business before.
Is it a data breach? No.
Is it a little creepy? Yes.
If this doesn’t sit well with you, the good news is that you can opt out.
How to Remove Your Email from Stripe
Send an email to privacy@stripe.com, requesting that your email or emails be unlinked from your credit card.
Example: I have noticed that my email is available when a vendor is using Stripe, even though I have never used this vendor before. I did some research and found that Stripe is linking my email address to my credit card. Can you please unlink the following email address: <email address>.
Note: This only applies to email receipts. Businesses may still collect your email if you give it directly to them.
How to Remove Your Email from Square
Go to: https://profile.squareup.com/privacyrequests
Select “Delete your customer information”
Add your email address
Obtain the code from the email sent by Square
Click to delete your customer information
Should You Be Worried?
This isn’t a data breach; it’s more like a modern convenience with a side of privacy tradeoff. Some people love the simplicity of automatic receipts. Others, like many of us in the cybersecurity world, prefer to keep a tighter grip on personal data.
Either way, it’s your information, and you have the right to say how it’s used.
