Tinder, Grindr, OKCupid Sell Your Sexual Data, Political Views For Ads That Violate Privacy Law

Dating apps have surely made meeting new people a whole lot easier. However, it looks like it is coming at a grave personal cost.

The Norwegian Consumer Council has filed three complaints against dating apps Grindr, OkCupid and Tinder for sharing personal user data to advertisers. The council has also filed the case against the advertisers for receiving such confidential data.

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The sharing of data is a direct violation of European Union¡¯s GDPR data protection legislation. According to the complaint, the apps have been sharing a variety of data with advertisers such as GPS location, sexual orientation.

Grindr is a dating app designed specifically for people of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transexual community to connect. Just installing the app lets Grindr know about a person¡¯s sexual orientation -- identifying them as a part of the LGBT community.

Grindr also uses Twitter-owned advertising software (controlled by MoPub) that collects and processes this personal information. According to the report, "Grindr only lists Twitter's MoPub as an advertising partner and encourages users to read the privacy policies of MoPub's own partners to understand how data is used. MoPub lists more than 160 partners, which clearly makes it impossible for users to give an informed consent to how each of these partners may use personal data."

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Dating app OkCupid, on the other hand, was seen sharing data on the choice of drug use, sexuality, ethnicity, political views among other things with analytics firm Braze. In case you didn¡¯t know, OkCupid, upon sign up asks a bunch of questions to its users to help them find a partner with similar tastes and views -- and this translates to a good amount of data.

The report sheds light on the fact that many users don¡¯t really read the terms and conditions before signing up, and even if they do, the complicated legal language doesn¡¯t do a good job in making a normal user realise how and what data of theirs will be used by the app -- urging companies to make this communication easier to understand.

Report states, "If one actually attempts to read the privacy policy of any given app, the third parties who may receive personal data are often not mentioned by name. If the third parties are actually listed, the consumer then has to read the privacy policies of these third parties to understand how they may use the data. In other words, it is practically impossible for the consumer to have even a basic overview of what and where their personal data might be transmitted, or how it is used, even from only a single app."