Grindr sale as US says Chinese owner a risk
Parent company puts LGBT dating app on the market after fears raised over its use for blackmail
THE Chinese parent company of Grindr is scrambling to sell it off after a US government panel branded its ownership a national security risk.
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States has reportedly told Kunlun, a Chinese gaming company, that it must unwind its 2018 acquisition of the popular gay dating app.
Kunlun was previously preparing to float Grindr on public markets, but is now searching for a buyer in order to get rid of it as quickly as possible, Reuters said.
The exact nature of the committee’s concerns is unclear, but over the last two years it has begun to heavily scrutinise the handling of users’ personal data to Chinese firms. Its judgment underscores the escalating suspicion shown towards Chinese companies by America, which is leading a global campaign to lock Chinese investors and technology out of Western markets.
Grindr, based in Los Angeles, is a popular LGBT dating app which uses location tracking to help users find and contact romantic or sexual partners in proximity.
As a result, it holds personal data on around 27 million users, including where they live, with whom they have slept, their messages to partners, their sexual or gender identity and, in some cases, their HIV status.
Oren J Falkowitz, a former analyst at the US National Security Agency, said such data would be “of high interest to foreign intelligence services”.
“Tech platforms are collecting a ton of information about sensitive, private things that could be used for blackmail or coercion,” he said.
“Someone could figure out who is susceptible to financial blackmail, who is susceptible to marital blackmail.”
But he said its real utility was likely to improve the accuracy of phishing attacks against soldiers, government officials and employees of defence companies, who might be lured or panicked into clicking a link which would infect their computer with malware.
He said there were “endless examples” of Chinese state hackers using such tactics.
Kunlun bought a majority stake in Grindr in 2016 for $93million (£70million), and bought the company outright in 2018 but did not submit either acquisition for review by the committee.
US cyberspace command warned American soldiers last year to be on the lookout for all types of “sextortion scams”, telling them never to send compromising photos or videos of themselves to anyone.
Last November the US military police said it had uncovered a sextortion scheme using dating apps that had taken more than £420,000 from 400 members of the military. It was organised by inmates at a prison in South Carolina who had used contraband mobile phones to masquerade as attractive women.
Kunlun and Grindr both declined to comment. A spokesman for the US Treasury, which chairs the committee, said it would not comment on individual cases.