Grindr to pay £26m to settle claims it allegedly shared users' HIV status
The long-running claim alleges Grindr breached UK privacy laws by sharing data with third parties.
Grindr to pay £26m to settle claims it allegedly shared users' HIV status
Grindr has agreed to pay £26m to resolve a lawsuit alleging it shared users' personal information, including their HIV status, with third parties.
The world's largest LGBTQ+ dating app was taken to the High Court in 2024 over accusations that it misused people's personal data.
The class action was later filed in the US, and the law firm behind it said more than 11,000 claimants had signed up.
According to a US regulatory filing, Grindr will make two payments of £13m each to settle the claims. The company said the deal includes no admission of liability.
Grindr emphasised that the allegations concern "historical data practices" before 2020, when it was owned by Chinese firm Kunlun.
"While Grindr disputes the allegations, it recognizes and acknowledges the distress and loss of trust expressed by some of its UK users regarding that pre-2020 period," the company said in its filing.
The company has agreed to pay £13m to the counterparties by 31 December and another £13m by 31 March 2027.
The claims, brought more than two years ago by law firm Austen Hayes, alleged that Grindr had shared sensitive data with third parties for commercial purposes, in breach of UK privacy laws.
It said this included details about users' ethnicity and sexual orientation.
Grindr users can choose to share their HIV status and the date they were last tested, a feature the app says is intended to reduce stigma, encourage conversations and help users make informed health decisions.
Chaya Hanoomanjee, the lawyer who led the claim, said in April 2024 that claimants had "experienced significant distress" after their sensitive and private information was shared without their consent.
She said the company "owes it to the LGBTQ+ community it serves to compensate those whose data has been compromised".
Grindr became a publicly-listed company in 2022, two years after it was taken over by new owners
Two data analytics services, Apptimize and Localytics, were named as third parties that had access to the sensitive data.
The claim said an unlimited number of third parties may have used it to tailor advertisements to Grindr users.
This came after revelations in 2018 that Grindr had been sharing personal data, including users' HIV status, with the two data analytics providers.
At the time, Grindr defended the practice as consistent with industry standards, but later said it stopped sharing HIV data with those companies.
It was fined £5.5m by Norway's data protection watchdog and, later in 2022, reprimanded by the UK Information Commissioner's Office over its data practices.
In its filing on Friday, the company said that since 2020 it had "overhauled" its privacy practices to better meet the "unique needs of its community".
"Grindr is and remains a safe space for users, committed to transparency, user control, and responsible data practices," it said.