The dating app shared the users' HIV status with third parties

The Consumer Council complains Grindr to the Data Inspectorate.

In a press release, the Consumer Council now informs that they have complained of the Grindr mobile application to the Data Inspectorate for critical practices about sharing sensitive personal information. Grindr is a dating app for gay and bisexual people.

Based on a technical test carried out in collaboration with the research institute SINTEF, it was concluded that the app generously shared HIV status, laying, geo-location and sexual preferences with several third parties.

• Break the privacy policy
  Recipients of data should include a few companies specializing in data analysis and targeting of advertisements, called Apptimize and Localytics. The data being shared should not be encrypted and shared without explicit consent from users, the Consumer Council says.

Information on sexual orientation is considered sensitive personal data that should be treated with great caution in accordance with European and Norwegian legislation. The Council believes that Grindr has violated Norwegian privacy legislation, and therefore the app is now appealing to the Data Inspectorate.

The whole complaint can be found at the Consumer Council.

Technical Manager at Grindr, Scott Chen, recently published a post in response to the charges. In the post, Chen says that Grindr never has and will never sell information that can be identified and linked to people, especially non-HIV status information, to third parties.

Working with third parties
Scott admits that they work with other companies to test and optimize their platform, including the above-mentioned Apptimize and Localytics, and that they share information deemed necessary in this context. This may sometimes include location and HIV status data, but according to Scott, this information is transmitted encrypted and secure.

The companies in which Grindr works is, according to Scott, subject to strict contractual guidelines that will ensure the highest level of confidentiality, data security and privacy. He also points out that users are given the opportunity to provide the mentioned information in the app and that it is made clear in the Terms of Use that such data will be public if you choose to provide them.

As soon as the case became known, Grindr also informed the Axios website that they stopped sharing the users' HIV status with third parties.