Grindr 'shared user HIV status' with ad firms, lawsuit claims

Grindr, the world's largest LGBTQ dating app, has been accused of illegally sharing UK users' personal data, in a lawsuit filed at the High Court in London.

Law firm Austen Hays alleges the data was shared with two analytics firms employed by Grindr, the BBC reported, as well as a "potentially unlimited number" of advertising partners – some of whom "may then have retained some of the shared data for their own purposes".

Depending on what members shared on their public profile, that information could include "a user's HIV status and their last test date, their sexual preferences, and their GPS location", said technology website The Register.

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Grindr "announced it would stop sharing users' HIV status with third-party companies in April 2018", says The Guardian following negative media coverage of the practice. The current case relates to data use before 3 April 2018, but also the period from 25 May 2018 and 7 April 2020.

Chaya Hanoomanjee, the lawyer leading the suit, said many of the 670 users who had signed up to the claim had "experienced significant distress", and suggested Grindr "owes it to the LGBTQ+ community" to compensate those affected.

The US-based company has said it intends to respond "vigorously" to the claims of wrongdoing, which it described as "a mischaracterisation of practices from more than four years ago".

It's not the first time Grindr has been in the spotlight over its data handling practices. Grindr was "fined $6 million [£4.8m] by Norway in 2021 for data privacy behaviour that breached Europe's strict privacy laws", says Bloomberg. An appeal over the fine is ongoing.

The company "is also facing flak in the US", The Register said, stemming from reports in October 2023 that it was "retaining user data even after accounts were deleted". Grindr has described the claims as "unfounded".