It emerged in 2018 that Grindr had been sharing personal data, including HIV status of users, with Apptimize and Localytics.
Those companies were paid to monitor how people used the app in order to improve it.
At the time, Grindr defended the practice, saying it was in line with industry standards – but it said it then stopped sharing HIV data with those companies.
The firm said it had never sold the data to any advertisers.
In 2021, the company was fined £5.5m by Norwegian authorities for breaking GDPR (EU general data protection regulation) rules.
It was found to have shared user data, without seeking explicit consent, to third-party companies for the purpose of advertising.
In 2022, Grindr was reprimanded, external by the UK’s data watchdog over its data protection practices.
The Information Commissioner’s Office ruled that the company had failed to “provide effective and transparent privacy information to its UK data subjects in relation to the processing of their personal data”.
The BBC has contacted Apptimize and Localytics for comment.
source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj7mxnvz42no
