Grindr faces $10mn fine in Norway for illegal data sharing

Smartphone dating app Grindr faces a record 100-million-kroner (9.6-million-euro) fine in Norway for illegally sharing user data with third parties, the Norwegian Data Protection Authority said on Tuesday.

Grindr, which claims to be “the world’s largest social networking app for gay, bi, trans, and queer people”, is accused of sharing its users’ GPS coordinates, user profile data and the fact that the user is on Grindr, for marketing purposes.

“Our preliminary conclusion is that Grindr has shared user data to a number of third parties without legal basis,” Data Protection Authority director-general Bjorn Erik Thon said in a statement.

According to the authority, this violates the European Union’s GDPR, or data protection rules, on valid consent that were introduced in May 2018.