Grindr

Is Grindr safe?

Grindr is safer to use than it was before 2020, but its record is weaker than those of the other dating apps we cover: Tinder, Bumble and Hinge. The data at stake is about as sensitive as personal data gets: being on Grindr points to your sexual orientation, and profiles can include HIV status and where you are right now. Norway fined Grindr NOK 65 million for sharing user data with advertisers, and the fine survived every appeal. We score Grindr 41/100, well below Tinder at 50.

Grindr averaged about 15 million monthly users in 2025, according to its annual report.

Location: the risk that matters most

Grindr shows nearby profiles sorted by distance. That is the product, and it is also the danger. If an app shows "300 metres away" and someone can check from three spots, they can work out where you are. This is called trilateration, and Grindr's own annual report calls it "a common risk of location-based apps" that has led to "multiple regulatory inquiries".

Researchers keep showing it works. In 2024 a KU Leuven team tested six dating apps, including Bumble and Hinge, and rated Grindr the most exposed: exact distance readings let them place a user within about a 111 by 111 metre square. Grindr's response was that users can turn off location display.

For most users in Europe or North America, this means a stalker or an ex could find your street. In countries that criminalise same-sex relationships, it can mean arrest. In March 2023 Grindr sent hourly warnings to users in Egypt after local groups reported 35 to 40 arrests in one weekend, saying police were using fake accounts and accounts taken from people already arrested. Human Rights Watch found Egypt accounted for 29 of 40 documented entrapment cases across five countries from 2017 to 2022.

The Norway fine and the UK settlement

The Norwegian Consumer Council complained in 2020 that Grindr shared users' GPS location, IP address, age and gender with ad-tech companies. Norway's data protection authority, Datatilsynet, proposed a NOK 100 million fine in January 2021 and set it at NOK 65 million in December 2021, finding that Grindr had no valid consent and had disclosed special-category data, since using Grindr reveals sexual orientation. Norway's Privacy Appeals Board, the Oslo District Court in July 2024 and the Court of Appeal in October 2025 all upheld it. Grindr paid the fine in February 2026, according to its filings.

In the UK, a law firm brought a High Court group claim on behalf of more than 10,000 users over Grindr's data practices before 2020. On 2 September 2026 Grindr agreed to settle for £26 million, paid in two instalments, with no finding or admission of liability. Grindr said the claims concern the period when it was owned by the Chinese company Kunlun, and that it has overhauled its privacy programme since. A separate Israeli class action over data sharing has a settlement awaiting court approval.

HIV status and the 2018 revelations

In April 2018 BuzzFeed News and the Norwegian research group SINTEF reported that Grindr sent users' HIV status and last test date to two app-optimisation vendors, Apptimize and Localytics, together with email addresses, GPS data and phone IDs. SINTEF also found that some data sent to ad companies travelled unencrypted. Grindr said the vendors were bound by strict contracts and then stopped sending the data.

In 2021 a Catholic news site used commercially bought location data to out a US priest as a Grindr user. Grindr denied it was the source and said it had stopped sharing location, age and gender with ad partners in 2020. The case showed how app location data can be traced back to a person even without a breach.

How to use Grindr more safely

1. Turn off the distance display in your profile settings. It is the single biggest change you can make.
2. Leave HIV status, face photos and other identifying details off your profile if being outed would harm you.
3. On iPhone, choose "Ask App Not to Track" to cut the identifiers shared for advertising.
4. Meet first in a public place and tell a friend where you are going. Fake profiles are used to set up robberies and attacks.
5. Be wary of anyone who pushes for explicit photos early or quickly; sextortion often starts that way.
6. When travelling to a country that criminalises same-sex relationships, assume police may be on the app. Grindr's in-app warnings are worth reading.

How we scored it

Privacy (30) and the regulatory record (30) are the weakest factors: a court-upheld GDPRGDPRThe EU's General Data Protection Regulation, which sets rules on how organisations collect and use personal data and allows large fines.More in the glossary fine, a £26 million settlement and an advertising-linked App Store label for an app that reveals sexual orientation. Security (45) reflects proven location exposure despite encryption and a bug bounty. Control (58) gets credit for the option to hide distance, which you have to turn on yourself.