Security News > 2021 > February > Mozilla privacy report on dating apps singles out Grindr for serious security lapses

Dating has been a lot tougher for singles since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, forcing many people onto dating apps to supplement the real thing.

Most dating apps require users to enter a significant amount of information for safety purposes, but a new report from Mozilla has found that some of the most popular dating apps take a lot more data from you than you'd expect.

Ahead of Valentine's Day, Mozilla released its *Privacy Not Included report, poring through the data collection policies and security posture of the 24 most popular dating apps like Tinder, Bumble, Grindr, Match, and OkCupid.

Mozilla researchers put their "*Privacy Not Included" warning label on 21 of the dating apps examined, noting that apps like Grindr are a "Privacy and security nightmare."

"Not going to sugar coat this: Grindr is a horrible dating app for user privacy and security. Of all the dating apps we reviewed, Grindr is the worst of the worst. They're so bad the Norwegian Data Protection Authority recently fined them $11.7 million for illegally sharing private, personal information with advertising companies," the report said.

"Given Grindr is the world's largest gay dating app, and given that in some parts of the world outing someone as gay can get them killed, these bad data privacy practices aren't just awful and illegal, they are also life threatening. On top of that, back in 2018, Grindr was caught exposing users' HIV status to companies. Seriously, not only did Grindr ask users' to provide their HIV status, they then turned around and shared that very sensitive information. Like we said, Grindr is the worst," the researchers added.

News URL

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/mozilla-privacy-report-on-dating-apps-singles-out-grindr-for-serious-security-lapses/#ftag=RSS56d97e7