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Inside Grindr, fears China wanted to access user data via HIV research

JacksinPA

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Inside Grindr, fears China wanted to access user data via HIV research

In leaked emails, Grindr's president wrote “We can’t let people say this is about ‘sharing user data with the Chinese government.’”

Just a few months after a Chinese gaming company acquired Grindr, a gay dating app, employees of the app learned that the Trump administration was investigating the deal over national security concerns, according to two people familiar with the company.

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., an interagency group led by the Treasury Department that oversees foreign acquisitions of U.S. companies, began investigating Grindr as early as July 2018 because of concerns about the security of sensitive user data collected by the app, which included the HIV status of millions of gay people around the world, the sources said. Sources familiar with the situation say employees learned of the investigation from internal company documents and in a July 20, 2018 meeting with Grindr executives and representatives from a newly-hired public relations firm.
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Gay, HIV positive & a Grindr subscriber? Surprise! They may know a lot about you in Beijing & that's not to your advantage. With over 3 million subs, there is now national security concern about the Chinese using this data to compromise people in key positions in industry & government.
 
Inside Grindr, fears China wanted to access user data via HIV research

In leaked emails, Grindr's president wrote “We can’t let people say this is about ‘sharing user data with the Chinese government.’”

Just a few months after a Chinese gaming company acquired Grindr, a gay dating app, employees of the app learned that the Trump administration was investigating the deal over national security concerns, according to two people familiar with the company.

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., an interagency group led by the Treasury Department that oversees foreign acquisitions of U.S. companies, began investigating Grindr as early as July 2018 because of concerns about the security of sensitive user data collected by the app, which included the HIV status of millions of gay people around the world, the sources said. Sources familiar with the situation say employees learned of the investigation from internal company documents and in a July 20, 2018 meeting with Grindr executives and representatives from a newly-hired public relations firm.
========================================================
Gay, HIV positive & a Grindr subscriber? Surprise! They may know a lot about you in Beijing & that's not to your advantage. With over 3 million subs, there is now national security concern about the Chinese using this data to compromise people in key positions in industry & government.

So what is the national security concern tied to a Chinese company knowing who self-identifies as HIV positive on a hookup app? Cause I have to tell you..anybody in such a position who is using that app is probably either not going to identify themselves as HIV positive or doesn’t have any identifying information on the app.
 
So what is the national security concern tied to a Chinese company knowing who self-identifies as HIV positive on a hookup app? Cause I have to tell you..anybody in such a position who is using that app is probably either not going to identify themselves as HIV positive or doesn’t have any identifying information on the app.

And you know this for certain exactly how?
 
And you know this for certain exactly how?

A few reasons. Number one is that if there is a danger of a VIP being recognized on Grindr and harassed or extorted as a result then that risk exists regardless of who owns the app because any user can see that information. So its unlikely that anyone in such a position is being that careless with identifying information anyway. And knowing some minor celebrities who use the app - they aren’t.

Number two is that Grindr doesn’t do anything in the way of validating the identity of the users or even that the user is a real person vs a bot or some guy in India impersonating someone else with stolen photos in fraud schemes.
 
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