Dating app Grindr to stop sharing users’ HIV status

Grindr says it will stop sharing user data, including HIV status, to two other companies after concerns the disclosures violated consumer privacy and undermined public health efforts.

The gay dating and social networking app, which counts more than 3 million daily active users, said Tuesday it no longer would share users’ HIV status with app optimization company Apptimize and is discussing how to remove data from Localytics. Plans to halt the data sharing followed a report by

Buzzfeed News — citing research from Norwegian non-profit SINTEF — that the app was passing on users’ HIV information along with their GPS data, phone

ID and email, which could make it possible for the companies to identify sensitive information about specific users. The app had originally defended the practice by noting users acknowledge any information they share in their profile could become known since the app operates as a “public forum.”

Grindr security chief Bryce Case on Tuesday said sharing the information with vendors was “standard industry practice for rolling out and debugging software” and sought to distance it from the recent revelations that political targeting firm Cambridge Analytica used information from as many as 50 million Facebook users, without their consent, to help win President Trump’s election.

Sens. Edward Markey, D-Mass., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said Tuesday they sent a letter to the CEOs of Grindr, Apptimize and Localytics asking about their policies protecting users’ data, such as whether they obtained opt-in consent before sharing or selling the data and what privacy requirements they made of third parties.

Grindr defended its data sharing. GETTY IMAGES/ISTOCKPHOTO