Grindr shared its users' HIV status with other companies, but the app announced late on April 2 that it would stop sharing the sensitive info.
The popular dating app for gay and bisexual men, which has more than 3.6 million daily users, was sharing its users’ HIV status, along with GPS stats, phone IDs, and emails to 2 different companies that help debug and optimize app performance.
Norwegian nonprofit Sintef first identified the issue and it was first revealed on April 2 in a Buzzfeed report. Grindr initially defended its decision to share this info, prompting outcry from users, advocacy groups, and tech groups. The 2 companies that received this information were Apptimize and Localytics.
Grindr stressed HIV status is never sold to advertisers and has deleted the data from Apptimize — it’s also in the process of deleting it from Localytics. But many are still unsatisfied with Grindr’s response, saying they trusted Grindr with the sensitive information and that exposing it could put many at risk with work and with their families. Other companies like Facebook have come under a lot of flak for sharing users’ data without their consent — hopefully there aren’t more digital platforms out there that are using similar practices.
