Grindr sued for allegedly revealing users’ HIV status
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Grindr, the world’s largest dating app for the LGBTQ+ community, faces a lawsuit for reportedly disclosing private details like users’ HIV status to external parties.
The case, filed in the High Court in London, cites the use of “covert tracking technology” and the illegal distribution of sensitive data to advertisers.
Law firm Austen Hays represents over 650 plaintiffs, stating “thousands” of UK users were impacted.
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Grindr has pledged to “respond vigorously” to the allegations.
A spokesperson for Grindr asserted the company takes privacy “extremely seriously,” noting the lawsuit “appears to be based on a mischaracterization of practices from more than four years ago.”
Austen Hays notes that successful claimants might receive substantial compensation.
The submitted claim form to the High Court indicates a pursuit of over £100,000 in total claims, according to ‘BBC’.
Chaya Hanoomanjee of Austen Hays, leading the case, mentioned claimants “experienced significant distress over their highly sensitive and private information being shared without their consent”.
“Grindr owes it to the LGBTQ+ community it serves to compensate those whose data has been compromised,” she stated.
The app registers 13 million monthly users, and a May 2023 Ofcom report showed approximately 924,000 UK users.
It also boasted the highest engagement among all dating apps, with users dedicating an average of six hours and 49 minutes in that month.
The lawsuit claims the company distributed sensitive data to third parties for business gains, violating the UK’s data privacy regulations and included information on users’ ethnicity and sexual orientation.
The alleged sharing primarily took place before 3 April 2018, although it continued between 25 May 2018 and 7 April 2020.
It identifies data analytics firms Apptimize and Localytics as among the third parties accessing the sensitive data.
Yet, it suggests an unlimited number of third parties might have used this data for tailoring ads to Grindr users.
Furthermore, it is alleged these companies might have held onto the data for their own use.
In 2018, it was revealed that Grindr had shared user information, including HIV status, with Apptimize and Localytics.
These entities were compensated to analyse app usage to enhance its functionality.
At the time, Grindr justified this sharing as standard industry practice, although it then ceased sharing HIV data with these firms.
The company asserted it never sold the data to advertisers.
In 2021, Grindr faced a £5.5m fine from Norwegian authorities for breaching GDPR rules by sharing user data without explicit consent for ad purposes.
In 2022, Grindr received criticism from the UK’s data protection authority for inadequate data handling practices.
The Information Commissioner’s Office found that Grindr failed to “provide effective and transparent privacy information to its UK data subjects concerning their personal data processing”.
The BBC has reached out to Apptimize and Localytics for comments.
Read related myGwork articles here:
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Grindr Loses Nearly Half Its Staff After Issuing Return-To-Office Ultimatum
Grindr: 25% Of Users Are On The App To Network, Company Says
Grindr To Become A Public Company
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