Grindr has agreed to pay £26 million to settle a UK lawsuit alleging that it shared users’ sensitive personal information, including HIV status, with third parties.
The settlement covers approximately 12,000 claimants and was reached on 2 September, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. It resolves a class action brought in the High Court of England and Wales over Grindr’s data practices during a period ending in early 2020.
Grindr will make two payments of £13 million. The first is due by 31 December 2026 and the second by 31 March 2027. The agreement contains no admission of liability.
The claim was filed in April 2024 by the UK law firm Austen Hays. It alleged that Grindr misused personal information belonging to people who used the free version of the app between 2016 and 2020.
The allegations concerned highly sensitive health and personal data. They included claims that Grindr shared users’ HIV status, their most recent HIV testing dates and results, and whether they were using PrEP, a medicine used to prevent HIV infection. The case also alleged the sharing of information about users’ ethnicity and sexual orientation.
Third parties said to have received the data included the advertising companies Localytics and Apptimize. The practices first became public in 2018, when it was revealed that Grindr had shared personal information, including users’ HIV status, with two data analytics providers.
Grindr said the allegations related to historical practices before 2020, when the company was owned by the Chinese firm Kunlun. The company updated its consent guidelines in April 2020.
In a statement, Grindr said: “While Grindr disputes the allegations, it recognizes and acknowledges the distress and loss of trust expressed by some of its UK users regarding that pre-2020 period”.
Eligible claimants would receive £2,167 each if the settlement money were divided equally. The precise method for allocating the £26 million has not been set out, and details of how claimants will establish eligibility or receive compensation are unknown.
The case reached the US after the class action was served there. The law firm leading the claim said it had signed up more than 11,000 claimants.
Grindr has previously faced regulatory action over its handling of user data. Norway’s data protection watchdog fined the company £5.5 million in a case in which Norway’s government imposed a penalty of 100 million Norwegian kroner in 2021 for illegally sharing data. The UK Information Commissioner’s Office reprimanded the company over its data practices in 2022.
Grindr became a publicly-listed company in 2022. The UK settlement adds private litigation to the earlier regulatory scrutiny of its pre-2020 data practices, with the claim centred on the disclosure of health and demographic information to commercial analytics and advertising companies.
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