Grindr Agrees £26m Settlement Over UK HIV-Data Privacy Claims

Grindr will pay £26 million to settle UK legal claims over allegations that users’ personal details, including HIV status, reached outside analytics companies, the BBC reported after a new US filing made the agreement public.

The settlement gives the dating app a defined financial exposure while leaving the legal allegations formally disputed.

Grindr said the agreement carries no admission of liability and concerns “historical data practices” before 2020, when Chinese firm Kunlun owned the company.

The payment schedule is split in two.

SEC paperwork filed by Grindr sets out one £13 million transfer to counterparties by 31 December and a second £13 million transfer by 31 March 2027.

The agreement was reached on 2 September.

The lawsuit began in the UK High Court in 2024 over claims that Grindr misused personal information.

The class action later moved into the United States, and Austen Hayes, the law firm behind the case, had registered more than 11,000 claimants.

The disputed data went beyond ordinary account details.

The claim alleged commercial sharing of sensitive categories such as ethnicity, sexual orientation and HIV status in breach of UK privacy law.

Grindr users can choose to display HIV status and a last-test date, a feature the company presents as a way to reduce stigma, encourage conversations and help people make informed health choices.

Apptimize and Localytics were named as the analytics providers that could see sensitive information.

The claim also alleged that advertising customisation may have involved a wider, potentially unlimited group of outside parties.

That history matters because the new settlement follows public revelations from 2018 that Grindr had shared personal data, including HIV status, with the two analytics companies.

Grindr defended the practice then as consistent with industry standards, but later said it had stopped sending HIV data to those providers.

Regulators had already acted before the latest settlement.

Norway’s data protection watchdog fined the company £5.5 million, and the UK Information Commissioner’s Office issued a reprimand in 2022 over data practices.

Grindr’s ownership and public-market status frame the company’s present defence.

The app became publicly listed in 2022, two years after new owners took over from Kunlun.

In the new filing, Grindr said it recognises distress and loss of trust expressed by some UK users over the pre-2020 period, while still disputing the allegations.

The company now says privacy practices have been overhauled since 2020 to meet the “unique needs of its community.” The confirmed result is a narrower legal endpoint than the broader privacy debate: a £26 million settlement, paid in two tranches, with no admission of liability.