More than 650 claimants in the United Kingdom are suing Grindr, alleging the world's most popular LGBTQ dating app broke national privacy laws by sharing users' most sensitive health information — including their HIV status — with third-party data brokers for advertising purposes. The app used "covert tracking technology" to do so, according to the claim lodged in London's High Court on Monday. Grindr previously admitted to sharing users' HIV status in 2018, and even defended the practice despite widespread outcry.
As reported by the BBC, the company is accused of illegally sharing users' HIV status, sexual orientation, race and ethnicity with data analytics companies Apptimize and Localytics — who, claimants say, may have also kept some of the data for other purposes. Despite marketing itself as a privacy-sensitive dating app for marginalized communities, claimants allege Grindr paid the two data brokers to surveil people's usage of the app. The company is accused of sharing user data on several occasions, mainly before April 2018, but also between May 2018 and April 2020.
