# Grindr pays £26m to settle UK lawsuit over allegedly sharing users’ HIV status

- URL: https://talkfuse.com/story/grindr-pays-26m-to-settle-uk-lawsuit-over-allegedly-sharing-users-hiv-status/
- Published: 2026-09-07T15:42:06+00:00
- Updated: 2026-09-07T21:44:23+00:00
- Original publisher: The Guardian (publisher lean: Left)
- Original article: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/sep/07/grindr-settle-uk-lawsuit-dating-app-ad
- Topics: Americas, Business, Cybersecurity, Software, Technology, UK, World

## Key points

- Grindr to pay £26m over alleged sharing of users' HIV status with advertisers
- Settles UK High Court claim by 12,000 users; no admission of liability
- Echoes Norway's 2021 £4.8m fine for similar pre-2020 data practices

## Summary

Grindr has agreed to pay £26m to settle a UK High Court lawsuit brought by around 12,000 users who alleged the dating app shared highly sensitive personal data, including in some cases their HIV status, with advertising companies without proper consent. The case, filed in April 2024 by London law firm Austen Hays over alleged breaches of UK privacy law, concerned Grindr's practices up to early 2020, when it was owned by China's Beijing Kunlun Tech, and forms part of a wider pattern of regulatory and legal action against the app over its historical handling of users' private data.

Under the settlement, Grindr will pay £13m by the end of this year and a further £13m by March 2027, giving affected users an average of £2,167 each if divided equally; the company denies liability and says no findings were made against it. Grindr, now valued at $2.65bn with nearly 15 million users worldwide, says it overhauled its privacy practices after 2020, when it was sold to US investors amid national security concerns and later listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The settlement echoes a separate case in Norway, where regulators fined Grindr £4.8m in 2021 for similar data-sharing violations, a decision upheld on appeal last October.

## Coverage

- [The Guardian: Grindr pays £26m to settle UK lawsuit over allegedly sharing users’ HIV status](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/sep/07/grindr-settle-uk-lawsuit-dating-app-ad)
- [BBC Technology: Grindr to pay £26m to settle claims it allegedly shared users' HIV status](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn8e63qdqwzo?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss)

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Summarised by TalkFuse (https://talkfuse.com/). Quote the original publisher for the reporting and link this page for the summary and discussion.