Dating app Grindr agrees to pay tens of millions of euros after sharing sensitive data

Grindr has agreed to pay about 30 million euros in Britain after users brought a class action over the dating app’s handling of highly sensitive personal data.

The service, popular among sexual and gender minorities, allegedly shared information including whether users had HIV. Users could enter that information themselves in their profiles. Grindr shared the data with the analytics companies Apptimize and Localytics.

The Norwegian research organization Sintef first reported the data sharing in 2018. Grindr said at the time that it would stop sharing users’ HIV-status information with analytics companies. A class action was filed in Britain in 2024 after the disclosures.

Grindr denies the allegations but has agreed to settle. The Guardian reported that the agreement does not establish or acknowledge liability. Under the settlement, the company will pay £13 million by the end of this year and another £13 million by March next year, a total of roughly 30 million euros. The app’s owners have changed since the 2018 disclosures, when it belonged to Chinese gaming company Beijing Kunlun Tech.