Dating apps leak personal data, consumer group says
Grindr is sharing detailed personal data with thousands of advertising partners, allowing them to receive information about users’ location, age, gender and sexual orientation, a Norwegian consumer group said.
“Every time you open an app like Grindr, advertisement networks get your GPS location, device identifiers and even the fact that you use a gay dating app,” Austrian privacy activist Max Schrems said. “This is an insane violation of users’ [European Union] privacy rights.”The consumer group and Schrems’ privacy organization have filed three complaints against Grindr and five ad-tech companies to the Norwegian Data Protection Authority for breaching European data protection regulations.
Braze also said it didn’t sell personal data, nor share that data between customers. “We disclose how we use data and provide our customers with tools native to our services that enable full compliance with GDPR and CCPA rights of individuals,” a Braze spokesman said.The California law requires companies that sell personal data to third parties to provide a prominent opt-out button; Grindr does not seem to do this.
But given the sensitivity of the information they have, dating apps in particular should take privacy and security extremely seriously, Goldman said. Exposing a person’s sexual orientation, for example, could change that person’s life.Representatives for Grindr didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
The European Union’s data protection law, GDPR, came into force in 2018 setting rules for what websites can do with user data. It mandates that companies must get unambiguous consent to collect information from visitors. The most serious violations can lead to fines of as much as 4% of a company’s global annual sales.
Schrems has for years taken on large tech companies’ use of personal information, including filing lawsuits challenging the legal mechanisms Facebook Inc. and thousands of other companies use to move that data across borders.
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