Grindr has been sharing users' HIV status with other companies

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April 3, 2018 | Online

Grindr has been sharing users' HIV status with other companies

One would expect that an app that caters to gay and bi men around the world-- many who live in communities or countries where being out can be dangerous -- would do the utmost to keep its customers' details private.

Sadly, Grindr has failed to do just that. Worse, the information it was sharing with third parties has even included the HIV status of many of its users.

The breach was discovered by Norwegian research company , which analyzed Grindr’s traffic. It found that if a user disclosed his HIV status in his profile, it was included in packets of information forwarded to two other companies (Apptimize and Localytics). Users were not advised this information was being shared.

It gets worse! SINTEF found that other information was also being shared at the same time, including the exact GPS position, gender, age, “tribe” (such as jock or geek), ethnicity, relationship status and language of the user.

When the news came out this weekend, many people accused Grindr of abusing their trust.

“Grindr is a relatively unique place for openness about HIV status,” James Krellenstein, a member ACT UP New York, told . “To then have that data shared with third parties that you weren’t explicitly notified about, and having that possibly threaten your health or safety -- that is an extremely, extremely egregious breach of basic standards that we wouldn’t expect from a company that likes to brand itself as a supporter of the queer community.”

As far as sharing the HIV details from profiles, Grindr initially said there was nothing to worry about; it explained that this detail was only available to Apptimize and Localytics, and that they only used this type of information for app improvement and not for advertising or marketing purposes.

Grindr claimed that “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.”

However, as the controversy started to grow, Grindr said it would no longer share anyone's HIV status and promised to do better.

"The inclusion of HIV status information within our platform is always regarded carefully with our users’ privacy in mind, but like any other mobile app company, we too must operate with industry standard practices to help make sure Grindr continues to improve for our community," it said in a statement. "We assure everyone that we are always examining our processes around privacy, security and data sharing with third parties, and always looking for additional measures that go above and beyond industry best practices to help maintain our users’ right to privacy."

It's just another reminder that anything you put online may make its way to people you don't want seeing it.