Grindr, a popular dating app geared toward gay and bisexual men, is facing a lawsuit that alleges users’ private information, including HIV status, was shared with third parties without their consent.
The law firm behind the claim, U.K.-based Austen Hays, said it is filing the class action lawsuit at London’s High Court on Monday because it believes Grindr violated the U.K.’s data protection laws.
The lawsuit alleges Grindr, which is based in the United States, processed and shared data relating to users’ ethnicities, sex lives, sexual orientations and HIV test dates with advertising companies like Localytics and Apptimize for the third parties to use in creating targeted ads.
Austen Hays also claims that those third parties potentially passed on the sensitive data to fourth parties.
Nearly 700 users have already signed on to the claim, but the law firm said thousands of others may join. The alleged breaches took place between 2018 and 2020, said Austen Hays.
In a statement provided to Scripps News, a spokesperson for Grindr said the company is committed to protecting users' data and complying with privacy regulations.
“Grindr has never shared user-reported health information for ‘commercial purposes’ and has never monetized such information,” the spokesperson continued. “We intend to respond vigorously to this claim, which appears to be based on a mischaracterization of practices from more than four years ago, prior to early 2020.”
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