Grindr, Gay Dating App, Gives HIV Data To Other Companies: Report

NEW YORK, NY — Grindr, a popular dating app for gay people that has more than 3.6 million daily active users, has been giving those peoples' HIV status to two app-optimization companies, according to a new report.

Those companies, Apptimize and Localytics, receive user profile details, including their HIV status and the date they were last tested, BuzzFeed reported on Monday.

That information is sent along with those users' location, phone identifier and email address, Antoine Pultier, a researcher at the Norwegian nonprofit SINTEF, told the news outlet. That could potentially allow users and their HIV status to be identified.

Grindr gave other independent ad agencies its users’ exact location, “tribe,” referring to what gay subculture they associate with, sexuality, relationship status, ethnicity and phone ID, BuzzFeed reported. That data was shared via "plain text" and could easily be hacked.

Cooper Quintin, senior staff technologist and security researcher at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told BuzzFeed News this is potentially problematic, particularly in countries with anti-LGBT communities and governments.

BuzzFeed says the revelations cast doubts over Grindr's commitment to its users' privacy.

In response to BuzzFeed, Grindr said the services they receive from Apptimize and Localytics improve their own app.

“Thousands of companies use these highly-regarded platforms. These are standard practices in the mobile app ecosystem,” CTO Scott Chen said in a statement. “No Grindr user information is sold to third parties. We pay these software vendors to utilize their services.”

Grindr is based in West Hollywood, California, according to Bloomberg.

Click here to read the whole article at BuzzFeed.com.

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