Grindr Is Letting Other Companies See User HIV Status And Location Data

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

Apptimize and Localytics did not respond to requests for comment. Chen said that these companies will not share users’ data: “The limited information shared with these platforms is done under strict contractual terms that provide for the highest level of confidentiality, data security, and user privacy.”

Even so, security experts say, any arrangement with third parties makes sensitive information more vulnerable.

“Even if Grindr has a good contract with the third parties saying they can’t do anything with that info, that’s still another place that that highly sensitive health information is located,” Quintin said. “If somebody with malicious intent wanted to get that information, now instead of there being one place for that — which is Grindr — there are three places for that information to potentially become public.”

Under the app’s “HIV status” category, users can choose from a variety of statuses, which include whether the user is positive, positive and on HIV treatment, negative, or negative and on PrEP, the once-daily pill shown to effectively prevent contracting HIV. (The app also links to a sexual health FAQ about HIV and how to get PrEP.)

But just because users are comfortable sharing personal information in their profile or chats doesn’t mean they want it being shared more broadly.

“Some people’s jobs may be in jeopardy if the wrong people find out about their status — or maybe they have difficult family situations,” said Chris Taylor of Seattle, who uses Grindr but no longer displays his HIV positive status on his profile. It’s “disconcerting,” he said, that Grindr is sharing this information with other companies. “It can put people in danger, and it feels like an invasion of privacy.”

The disclosure of HIV status also raises questions about the app’s privacy policy, which states: “You may also have the option to provide information concerning health characteristics, such as your HIV status or Last Tested Date. Remember that if you choose to include information in your profile, and make your profile public, that information will also become public.”

But the average person may not know or understand what they’ve agreed to in the fine print. Some experts argue that Grindr should be more specific in its user agreements about how it’s using their data.

“What the law regards as informed consent is in almost all instances uninformed consent,” Ben Wizner, director of the ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, told BuzzFeed News.

“I hope that one small silver lining here will be that users and citizens will realize that there are enormous loopholes in the privacy regime,” he said, “and that personal information is bought and sold freely on a global market.”