Grindr is sharing the HIV status of its users with other companies

One week after Grindr announced it would offer a feature reminding users to get tested for HIV, an explosive news report reveals the site is sharing customers’ HIV status with at least two outside companies.

Apptimize and Localytics, companies that help apps sharpen marketing strategies, “receive some of the information that Grindr users choose to include in their profiles,” BuzzFeed reported. That information includes HIV status and “last tested date.”

Because HIV information is sent alongside users’ GPS data, phone ID and email, an individual’s status could easily be discovered, Antoine Pultier, a researcher at the Norwegian nonprofit SINTEF, told BuzzFeed.

“The HIV status is linked to all the other information. That’s the main issue,” said Pultier. “I think this is the incompetence of some developers that just send everything, including HIV status.”

Grindr told BuzzFeed that the services provided by Apptimize and Localytics are intended to improve users’ experience.

“Thousands of companies use these highly regarded platforms. These are standard practices in the mobile app ecosystem,” Scott Chen, Grindr’s chief technology officer, told BuzzFeed in a statement. “No Grindr user information is sold to third parties. We pay these software vendors to utilize their services.”

The Gayly. April 2, 2018. 3:12 p.m. CST.