Grindr users in the U.K. are accusing the company for sharing HIV statuses with third-party users, thus prompting a lawsuit. According to the Austen Hays Law Firm, the company is illegally sharing users’ HIV statuses for commercial purposes, one which violates U.K. data breach laws.
HIV is an incurable disease that strips the human body’s ability to fight infections. It is usually sexually transmitted or through infected blood. Unfortunately, this virus has a long history of being only associated with gay men, and regardless, HIV status is a very personal issue to disclose.
This lawsuit alleges data breaches from the years 2018-2020. However, it is not the company’s first time getting in trouble for illegal data breaching. In 2021, Norway fined the company over 7 million dollars after they were found sharing personal information for commercial purposes and also sharing users’ precise locations. To make matters worse, an ex-employee of the company alleges to have been fired as a form of retaliation for questioning the company’s privacy policies.
Grindr subsequently has made it easier for queer men to find someone they can fall in love with but also having the ease of getting to secure a date without the insecurity that the person they may be talking to may not be queer themselves. So the fact that this company has over and over proved that they are willing to throw personal information up in the air in exchange for extra money is inappropriate and deceiving to the community it serves.
Chaya Hanoomanjee, a managing director at Austen Hays, has expressed that users have experienced significant stress, fear, anxiety, and embarrassment as a result of discovering this most recent controversy. Hanoomanjee demands that the company compensates those who have been exposed in this data breach, as the company holds the responsibility of keeping user information safe and providing the assurance that their information will not be jeopardized.
Grindr denied these claims, alleging that the company has never used users’ health information for monetization purposes. “We intend to respond vigorously to this claim, which appears to be a mischaracterization of practices from more than four years ago,” says Kelly Peterson Miranda in a statement.
