Norway fines Grindr record amount for sharing user data

Norwegian authorities said connected Wednesday that they were fining dating app Grindr much than six cardinal euros for illegally sharing users' idiosyncratic information with 3rd parties.

The good of 65 cardinal Norwegian kroner ($7.2 million, 6.3 cardinal euros) is the largest ever handed retired for specified a lawsuit successful the Scandinavian country.

"Our decision is that Grindr has disclosed user data to 3rd parties for behavioural advertisement without a ineligible basis," said Tobias Judin, caput of the Norwegian Data Protection Authority's (DPA) planetary department.

Grindr, which bills itself arsenic "the world's largest societal networking app for gay, bi, trans, and queer people," is accused of sharing GPS coordinates, elements of its users' profiles specified arsenic property oregon enactment and the precise information that they usage the app, frankincense giving indications of their intersexual orientation.

The deficiency of wide accusation astir this signifier fixed to users and deficiency of explicit support connected this constituent from them violates the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) adopted by the European Union successful 2018, according to the Norwegian DPA.

"We see that information revealing the information that idiosyncratic is simply a Grindr idiosyncratic powerfully indicates that they beryllium to a intersexual minority," the DPA said adding that this merits peculiar extortion nether the GDPR.

In January, DPA warned that Grindr faced a good of 100 cardinal kroner, oregon astir 10 percent of its planetary revenue, but gave the institution until February 15 to explicate its position.

Grindr argued that the offences were committed earlier April 2020, erstwhile the app changed its presumption of use.

The institution present has 3 weeks to entreaty against the decision.

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© 2021 AFP