Grindr has been sharing your HIV status with other companies
Table of contents:
- Your HIV status, shared by Grindr with two other firms
- For organizations against AIDS the matter is very serious
If you have been using Grindr, you should be aware that your HIV status (the virus that carries AIDS) may have been leaked to other companies. As reported by BuzzFeed through SINTEF, a Norwegian non-profit organization, the dating app would have shared information about whether or not its users have HIV with other companies.
It would be, according to this information, two companies dedicated to optimizing the operation of the application. And that they are called Apptimize and Localytics, according to data from BuzzFeed. But what kind of data has been shared?
Your HIV status, shared by Grindr with two other firms
When you sign up for Grindr, this dating app for gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people, you have the ability to indicate such sensitive information about your state of he alth, as if you are a carrier of HIV But beware, this is not all. You can also add data such as when was the last time you took the test or if you are taking any pill to combat this disease.
The fact is that this data, of such a sensitive nature (what is the doubt!) would not have been kept under lock and key. It seems that, as BuzzFeed explains, this information is managed together with others, which are what Apptimize and Localytics manage. These are two third-party companies that help Grindr make the app work better.Thus, the data on whether or not you have HIV would be used together with other coordinates as obvious as phone identification, email addresses and location data
And this is nothing but a problem. Because thanks to this additional data, it would be relatively easy to identify a specific person and link information about their HIV status with them. Which, obviously, would ruin any hint of privacy and intimacy on a matter as serious as everyone's he alth.
Worst of all, Grindr would not only have shared this data to improve the performance of its app. BuzzFeed points directly to the complaint made by SINTEF, about the fact that Grindr has also provided other information related to the sexuality and relationships of users for advertising purposes.
For organizations against AIDS the matter is very serious
Grindr is the only dating app that collects information as sensitive as people's HIV status. In the last few hours, those responsible for the application have been quick to point out that Grindr does not share information with third parties and that when it does with companies like Apptimize and Localytics, the Data is transferred in a completely secure manner. And with all the guarantees of privacy.
Also, according to BuzzFeed, they feel unfairly singled out. Surely because of the scandal that has put Facebook in the eye of the hurricane for a couple of weeks. We are referring, of course, to the Cambridge Analytica affair. In the last few hours, Grindr has announced that will stop sharing this sensitive information.
In any case, the organizations that fight against AIDS and support the people affected, have not hesitated to condemn this fact. They consider, on the one hand, that users should have been more clearly informed about the fact that the information on their HIV status was going to be shared.
Making data available to others like this can endanger the safety and he alth of users, say AIDS ACT UP New York. And they add that a company that stands up as a defender of the LGTBQ community should have been more transparent when managing this type of data.
