Gay dating and hookup app Grindr has shared the HIV status of its users with two third party companies, data analysis by Norwegian research outfit SINTEFF has learned.
The app has shared information Grindr users include in their public profiles – including HIV status, last tested date – with app optimisation companies Apptimize and Localytics, along with identifying data such as GPS data, phone ID and email.
“The HIV status is linked to all the other information,” researched Antoine Pultier told BuzzFeed News. “That’s the main issue. I think this is the incompetence of some developers that just send everything, including HIV status.”
Grindr is used by more than 3.6 million people daily around the world, including countries where being gay poses real social, financial and legal risks.
While the app is at the forefront of being open about HIV stigma, says AIDs advocate James Krellenstein, this sharing of data is a huge concern.
“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,” he told BuzzFeed News.
In response, Grindr released a statement assuring its users that it will never sell personally identifiable user information to third parties or advertisers, explaining its sharing of this data as “industry standard practise”.
“As an industry standard practise, Grindr does work with highly-regarded vendors to test and optimise how we roll out our platform. These vendors are under strict contractual terms that provide for the highest level of confidentiality, data security, and user privacy.”
And despite it positioning itself as an open place for HIV disclosure and discussion, it also reminded users that if they don’t want their HIV status ‘getting out’, they should simply not disclose.
“It’s important to remember that Grindr is a public forum,” it said. “We give users the option to post information about themselves including HIV status and last test date, and we make it clear in our privacy policy that if you choose to include this information in your profile, the information will also become public. As a result, you should carefully consider what information to include in your profile.”
It continued: “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. 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.”
Security researcher Cooper Quintin told BuzzFeed News that any data sharing with third parties makes that data more vulnerable to exposure.
“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,” he 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.”
