Grindr to pay £26m to settle UK lawsuit over allegedly sharing users’ HIV status
US-owned dating app will make two £13m payments to settle the claims it allowed ad firms access to private information
Grindr has agreed to pay £26m to settle a lawsuit brought by thousands of users in the UK who allege that it shared users' highly sensitive personal information - including their HIV status - with advertising companies.
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In April 2024, UK law firm Austen Hays filed a claim at the High Court of England and Wales alleging that the world's largest LGBTQ+ dating app misused people's personal information during a period up to early 2020.
It said this included information about the ethnicity and sexual orientation of its users, breaching UK privacy laws.
The class action suit was later served in the US, with the law firm leading the signing up of more than 11,000 claimants.
Grindr will make two £13m payments to settle the claims, according to a US regulatory filing, although the settlement includes no admission of liability.
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If the £26m is equally distributed, the 12,000 people the London law firm represented will receive an average compensation of £2,167 each, according to The Guardian.
Grindr insists that the claims relate to "historical data practices" before 2020, when Chinese firm Kunlun owned the company.
"While Grindr disputes the allegations, it recognises 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 said in the filing that it had overhauled its privacy programme since 2020, “with a keen focus on the unique needs of its community”.
It added that “Grindr is and remains a safe space for users, committed to transparency, user control and responsible data practices”.
Austen Hays’ parent firm, Gateley, said: “While Grindr disputes the allegations, it recognises and acknowledges the distress and loss of trust expressed by some of its UK users regarding that pre-2020 period.
“We thank our clients for trusting us with this sensitive case.”
Grindr gives users the option to share their HIV status and when they were last tested. In 2018, Grindr said it would stop sharing users’ HIV status with third-party companies after Norwegian researchers revealed data sharing with two companies.
Apptimize and Localytics were identified as third parties with access to the sensitive data, which the claim said enabled a potentially unlimited number of third parties to customise advertisements to Grindr's users.
In 2021, Norway’s data protection watchdog fined Grindr £4.8m – 10% of its global revenues – for violating data protection rules, according to The Guardian.
Grindr lost its appeal against the decision last October. The Court of Appeal said that the company’s claim that it did “‘not sell your personal user information to third parties for advertising purposes’ is clearly misleading”.
In 2022, the company was also reprimanded by the UK Information Commissioner's Office for its data practices.