Grindr, the world’s largest LGBTQ+ dating application, has reached a settlement agreement valued at £26m to resolve a class action lawsuit concerning the disclosure of users’ personal data to external parties. The litigation was initially filed in the High Court in 2024 and subsequently expanded to the United States, where legal representatives reported recruiting more than 11,000 claimants to participate in the case.
According to filings submitted to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the dating platform will remit two payments of £13m each to resolve the dispute. The company stated that the first installment is due by 31 December, with the second payment scheduled for 31 March 2027. Notably, the settlement agreement includes a statement that the company makes no admission of wrongdoing in connection with the allegations.
The law firm Austen Hayes, which led the legal action, contended that Grindr had disclosed sensitive user information to third-party data analytics firms, including Apptimize and Localytics, for commercial purposes in violation of UK privacy regulations. The shared information encompassed users’ ethnicity, sexual orientation, and HIV status. Grindr acknowledged in its regulatory filing that the disputed practices occurred during the pre-2020 period when the company was under Chinese ownership by Kunlun, and emphasized that such data sharing practices are no longer conducted following a comprehensive overhaul of its privacy protocols.
The company noted that Grindr permits users to voluntarily disclose their HIV testing status and results on their profiles as a feature designed to encourage open dialogue and reduce stigma within the community. Grindr previously faced regulatory penalties for these data practices, including a £5.5m fine from Norway’s data protection authority and a reprimand from the UK Information Commissioner’s Office in 2022 after initial revelations emerged in 2018 about the sharing of sensitive user information.
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