The letters were sent to Grindr's CEO as well as the heads of the two analytics companies that received
HIV status data about Grindr's customers.
Not exact matches
While the two companies, Apptimize and Localytics, were only given limited user information, each user's
HIV status and «last tested date» were linked to other personal information including GPS
data, phone ID, and email address.
The LGBTQ dating app, which has more than 3.6 million daily active users around the world, was recently revealed by BuzzFeed News to have shared the
HIV statuses of its users as well as the dates of their most recent tests with two
data optimisation companies.
When it's not Facebook admitting it allowed
data on as many as 87 million users to be sucked out by a developer on its platform who sold it to a political consultancy working for the Trump campaign, or dating app Grindr «fessing up to sharing its users»
HIV status with third party A / B testers, some other ugly facet of the tech industry's love affair with tracking everything its users do slides into view.
Case said that users»
HIV data, which included their
HIV status and last tested date, was only shared with Apptimize as part of a standard rollout procedure for new features on the app.
On January 17, 2018, Aetna announced it had agreed to pay $ 17.1 million to settle claims related to a
data breach that may have revealed customers»
HIV status information.
What do the Equifax breach, Cambridge Analytica's use of Facebook users»
data for political campaign purposes and Grindr's sharing of users»
HIV status have in common?
A
data analysis conducted by an outside research firm, and independently verified by BuzzFeed News, shows that a popular gay dating app is sharing its users»
HIV status with two other companies.
The first question specifically concerns Grindr's handling of information as sensitive to its user demographic as
HIV status, and the second concerns the larger conversation regarding whether or not any user
data should be shared with third - party applications without explicit and informed user consent.
Both firms receive some of the
data that Grindr users elect to include in their profiles, including their
HIV status, the last date they were tested for
HIV and whether or not they are taking the medication known as PrEP, a drug that lowers your risk of contracting
HIV.
In the past week, LGBTQ dating app Grindr received major criticism for its handling of private user health
data, and the company has since agreed to stop sharing
HIV status details with third - party firms.
Antoine Pultier of SINTEF said the main point is the fact that the
HIV status information is linked to other user information, such as GPS
data and email.
v3.co.uk - Grindr, the gay hookup app, has been accused of passing on highly sensitive information to companies including users»
HIV status and location
data.
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.