12 ms·

A priest was outed for using Grindr, experts say it’s a warning sign for privacy

146 points by jasonhansel 5y ago

tbihl 5y ago
This is exactly the same 'cancel culture' behavior that many US Republicans like to decry. In the same way that, in many recent high profile cases, right-leaning knowledge workers like professors have been forced from positions for sinning against the dogma of their professions in semi-private settings, this priest has been forced from his profession for his sinning against his employer's dogma. I guess the difference here is that the priest thought he was not doing so publicly, though on the other hand he was going against clearly stated requirements, which is not reliably true in the other case. But hopefully everyone on this site is well enough aware that anonymity is a myth in far more anonymous settings than ones where you provide demographics, photos, self description, and your location (I presume, if grindr is anything like other dating platforms I've seen.)
- snicker7 5y ago
  The position of a cleric is different than, say, a celebrity or a professor. Adherence to religious dogma (in both thoughts and actions) is a strict requirement.
  - mikem170 5y ago
    Not all religions demand the same adherence to dogma as Catholics do. Some more, some less. This also varies across political movements, professors and celebrities in difference countries, etc.
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      And it is probably safe to assume that even in those cases where they do that a sizeable fraction of those under that particular edict break the rules. You can impose all the rules you want if they go directly against some of the most basic human needs you can expect them to be broken.
    - enkid 5y ago
      All religions require adherence to some sort of dogma and have restricted behavior.
      - mikem170 5y ago
        I understand. That's how it works in practice. But catholics have confession, they teach that as long as you believe and are repentant all is forgiven. Perhaps that doesn't apply to priests.
        TheFreim 5y ago
        > they teach that as long as you believe and are repentant all is forgiven. Perhaps that doesn't apply to priests. In Catholic teaching forgiveness does not mean there isn't just punishment due, or that prudential decisions need to be made. An embezzler may be truly sorry but keeping them in a position where they control money would be bad for a variety of reasons (such as putting them in a near occasion of sin). In catholic Theology even those sins which are forgiven still require cleansing due to retained attachment to sin after death, this punishment / purification is called purgation and occurs in purgatory.
  - throwaway9980 5y ago
    Yeah, for this to be exactly the same the assumption would be that adherence to a certain dogma is a strict requirement for continued participation in society. Oh wait...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- bsder 5y ago
  > This is exactly the same 'cancel culture' behavior that many US Republicans like to decry. Hypocrisy is a central tenet of the US Republican platform. "Laws for thee but not for me" is a cornerstone of their belief system.
  - tbihl 5y ago
    That took longer than expected.
cameldrv 5y ago
The scary part about this is that if this random Catholic lay group can get access to this information, that it's overwhelmingly likely that foreign intelligence agencies and other groups know everyone who uses Grindr and can use this for blackmail.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- x0x0 5y ago
  Sounds like a reason not to embrace homophobia as policy. So it shouldn't matter if intelligence agencies get this info -- being gay in the military or government is fine.
  - dylan604 5y ago
    While I do not agree with it, it is a religious belief. That puts it in a different bracket. Religions get to do things that normal people cannot do.
    - worik 5y ago
      Why?
      - inkblotuniverse 5y ago
        Collective bargaining.
        worik 5y ago
        What a good answer! Worth more than a upvote!!
      - dylan604 5y ago
        Why what? Why I don't agree with it? - Because I don't care what anyone does as long as it doesn't negatively affect anyone/anything else. I just don't have time to care about other people's shit as I have enough of my own shit to worry about. It's in a different bracket? - Because in the USofA, religions are put in a separate bracket. That's how it was founded. Religions get to do things others can't? - Because SCOTUS has decided that churches get to ignore certain protections of protected classes because of their religious dogma. They have spoken, so that's how it is.
dylan604 5y ago
So the people doing the outting bought the data to peruse, which at this time is legal. The people selling the data also broke no laws. The data was originally obtained through 3rd party networks that apparently are also not breaking any laws. Essentially, everything here has been legal. Is doxing illegal? Even if these people had used a hacked data dump, did they do anything illegal? Putting a pin in the app selling this data being morally/legally right/wrong, let's talk about people publicly putting their personal information on a site/app that is designed to use that data to connect you with another like minded person. Even if the app/site does not share that data, would it be legally wrong for the matched person to recognize and then do the outting? I get the desire to connect with someone might be very strong, but when you have this much to lose by being outted, you'd think the risk would be too great to actually follow through. Again, I'm not a millenial or newer, so all of thse types of apps/sites are just so different from how I think. <shrugs>
- joshuaheard 5y ago
  Yes, it may be illegal, in civil court. It's the tort of "public disclosure of private facts". Under California law, the public disclosure of private facts is defined as (1) a public disclosure of (2) private facts about an individual (3) that would offend the average person, that (4) was not of legitimate public concern; and (5) where defendant published private facts with reckless disregard for their truth or falsity. You could sue for compensatory damages: Loss of reputation, shame and hurt feelings, damage to the plaintiff’s trade or occupation, or loss of business income resulting from the disclosure. (Link to source: https://www.shouselaw.com/ca/personal-injury/harm-to-reputation/public-disclosure-of-private-facts/ https://www.shouselaw.com/ca/personal-injury/harm-to-reputat...)
  - avalys 5y ago
    1) Maybe this is of legitimate public concern? 2) The last point - which must be present, thanks to the word “and” - seems to imply that publishing facts you have good reason to believe are true would be excluded.
    - 5y ago
jmcgough 5y ago
Grindr has also been used by oppressive regimes to find and imprison gay people: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2020/10/02/egypt-police-lgbt-dating-apps-grindr-jailed-torture-sexual-abuse-human-rights/ https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2020/10/02/egypt-police-lgbt-dati... Add that to 3rd party apps that can find your exact location (https://www.engadget.com/2018-09-15-grindr-location-info.html https://www.engadget.com/2018-09-15-grindr-location-info.htm...) and Grindr becomes a dangerous weapon against LGBT people.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  Smartphones are dangerous in some contexts.
  - CamperBob2 5y ago
    Then again, many powerful tools are.
    - ashtonkem 5y ago
      Most dangerous tools are predictable in their danger. Take firearms; modern firearms are reliable[0] and tend to do exactly what their current handler intends. You would not for example expect your firearm to leave its case in the middle of the night and blow your windows out, for example. Smart phones are unpredictable in their danger. You would not expect Grindr to sell you out to an oppressive regime, for example. Nor would you expect your private dating profile to get you fired. These are unpredictable outcomes well outside the range of what most users would expect. 0 - Truly accidental discharges where the firearm goes off without a trigger press are rare and make the news. Most negligent discharges are the result of people mishandling the firearm, rather than the firearm doing something unexpected.
      - phkahler 5y ago
        >> Nor would you expect your private dating profile to get you fired. I think the mistake is thinking those profiles are private. How could you ever meet someone without some ability for people to see your profile? I've never tried any dating sites, so may be overlooking something obvious to others.
worik 5y ago
Why is there no market for properly secure smart phones? I would have thought the market would be huge.
- dylan604 5y ago
  Is this a problem solely on smart phone security? Let's say the data being collected by the app someone is using is on a hypothetically secure phone. Isn't the real breach from the apps collecting more data than necessary to provide the functionality the app provides, and then selling that data to anyone with the right amount of cash? If the app is free so the selling of the data is the number one source of income, then as "enlightened" technerds we shouldn't be too surprised this can happen. However, it's not illegal. Is it the selling of user data collected by your service the thing that needs to be made illegal? How would that even work?
- kube-system 5y ago
  Because the phone isn't the problem, they are relatively secure. But when you install applications on your phone which mishandle your data or even sell it -- it doesn't matter how secure your phone is. The problem is the business culture and legal environment of software development. It's profitable and often legal to abuse data.
  - dylan604 5y ago
    A secure phone or more importantly a secure phone OS would not allow an app to collect information like this. The exact geo-location is not something an app like this needs. A "find someone with in 10 kms" is probably good enough, but "allow me to be found within less than a meter" is just waiting for abuse. If it is a 911/999 app, then sure, let them have my exact location. However, the center of the "within 10 km" needs to be significantly offset from my position, otherwise, it's kinda pointless.
    - kube-system 5y ago
      That’s just a tiny example of the data that can be abused. In this instance, the existence of a profile at all is abusable data, and there’s not much of a way around that other than being able to trust the application.
oh_sigh 5y ago
I'm torn on this one. I feel bad for the priest, but at the same time he chose to devote his life to an organization that hates people like him and has played a role in anti-gay sentiment throughout the world. Also, nothing wrong with being gay, but there is something wrong with having a libido so out of control that you're looking for hookups literally every day.
- _vertigo 5y ago
  So, it's his fault for being part an institution that's judgmental of certain sexual preferences, but also you're, like, totally judging him for his sexual preferences?
  - oh_sigh 5y ago
    Yes. If you elide/abstract all details away, you can make anything sound hypocritical. Let's take a food analogy: The Catholic church has the equivalent viewpoint of "Anyone who likes pizza more than hamburgers is wrong and has no place here". My viewpoint is "Binge eating disorders are bad and you should seek professional help if you have that disorder".
    - elliekelly 5y ago
      Except being gay isn't a disorder so there's no "professional help" he could or should have sought.
      - vokep 5y ago
        Except sex addiction is, gay or not. It seems uncertain if he really was having gay hookups all the time, or just was using the app. It does seem implied that the data points towards lots of hookups though.
      - oh_sigh 5y ago
        Notice how I never said that being gay was a disorder, and even said "There is nothing wrong with being gay". It seems like you have issues with the Catholic church rather than me. The disorder I spoke of would be sex addiction, which exists independently of what gender a person is attracted to.
perardi 5y ago
I’d be curious to see how secure Grindr’s servers actually are, because if someone really enterprising could combine this location hunting and get access to someone’s message history…hoo boy. Not solely for the purposes of out-ing people. Grindr messages are, well, I’ve seen things, man. It’s one thing to get outed—it’s another to get your scandalous message history splashed across the internet as well. The blackmail potential is huge.
- gjsman-1000 5y ago
  And in the meantime... don't do things that could get you blackmailed if you can help it.
  - dylan604 5y ago
    A leopard can't change its spots. It's not like you telling me to stop using an app that allows me to do something illegal. You're litterally telling someone to don't be a certain sexual orientation just because the current segment of socialtal beliefs doesn't like it. It doesn't work that way.
    - southeastern 5y ago
      Well, rather they shouldn't pick a profession dedicated to not doing that thing. Even if they were straight, I believe relationships wouldn't be allowed for them.
  - ulfw 5y ago
    And in the meantime... maybe don't post really not well thought out comments on Hackernews. This is shockingly naive and ignorant. There's 1000s of things people could potentially get blackmailed for by bad actors. Not just sexual behavior. Brushing that aside like it's a non-issue show lack of maturity.
umvi 5y ago
This brings up an interesting dilemma. For example, there are some religious schools that require you to agree to certain living standards in order to attend (such as Biola, BYU, etc.). For example, no premarital sex, no drugs, etc (rules depends on religion and institution). Say you attend such a school and decide to break the agreement you signed and go to a party and do drugs and have sex, etc. Then, at the party, you get raped. So, you report the rape to the police and during the investigation into the crime the university discovers you were at the party breaking the agreement you signed. Does the university have a right to terminate your membership at the institution based on information it got from a police report?
- gjsman-1000 5y ago
  Already a settled issue, Universities have removed students who had "extreme" beliefs in the past, or for going to parties without masks, or not being vaccinated. Because "extreme" is arbitrary, and universities can remove students, no reason why not. She might sue, but that's up to her. If you can remove a student for not being vaccinated, you can remove a student for violating your code of conduct.
- dogorman 5y ago
  Don't sign these sort of moronic agreements if you aren't willing to keep them. Instead, go to a secular school that doesn't make such demands. If more people chose not to give these schools their tuition money, they will be pressured to reform. You may as well go to their church then complain when they shun you. It's self-inflicted. Don't go to their dumb church and don't go to their dumb school either.
- elliekelly 5y ago
  No. It would be retaliation under Title IX.
  - watwut 5y ago
    Title IX does not apply to schools that do not receive federal funding. And these schools have tons of double standards in their rules anyway.
dmix 5y ago
> In 2018, Grindr, which uses highly granular location information, was found to have shared users’ anonymized locations, race, sexual preferences, and even HIV status with third-party analytic firms. I've become pretty cynical at this point to the endless stream of privacy issues but even I found this part shocking. Even extremely private health conditions were shared with 3rd-party advertisers? And they thought anonymizing a few attributes was good enough protections while including timestamped GPS locations? This ranks up there with the worst of them...
8bitsrule 5y ago
A Faraday bag might help. (Not an endorsement of this product.) https://privacypros.io/faraday-bags/ https://privacypros.io/faraday-bags/

146 points by jasonhansel 5y ago

This is exactly the same 'cancel culture' behavior that many US Republicans like to decry. In the same way that, in many recent high profile cases, right-leaning knowledge workers like professors have been forced from positions for sinning against the dogma of their professions in semi-private settings, this priest has been forced from his profession for his sinning against his employer's dogma. I guess the difference here is that the priest thought he was not doing so publicly, though on the other hand he was going against clearly stated requirements, which is not reliably true in the other case. But hopefully everyone on this site is well enough aware that anonymity is a myth in far more anonymous settings than ones where you provide demographics, photos, self description, and your location (I presume, if grindr is anything like other dating platforms I've seen.)

snicker7 5y ago
The position of a cleric is different than, say, a celebrity or a professor. Adherence to religious dogma (in both thoughts and actions) is a strict requirement.
- mikem170 5y ago
  Not all religions demand the same adherence to dogma as Catholics do. Some more, some less. This also varies across political movements, professors and celebrities in difference countries, etc.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    And it is probably safe to assume that even in those cases where they do that a sizeable fraction of those under that particular edict break the rules. You can impose all the rules you want if they go directly against some of the most basic human needs you can expect them to be broken.
  - enkid 5y ago
    All religions require adherence to some sort of dogma and have restricted behavior.
    - mikem170 5y ago
      I understand. That's how it works in practice. But catholics have confession, they teach that as long as you believe and are repentant all is forgiven. Perhaps that doesn't apply to priests.
      - TheFreim 5y ago
        > they teach that as long as you believe and are repentant all is forgiven. Perhaps that doesn't apply to priests. In Catholic teaching forgiveness does not mean there isn't just punishment due, or that prudential decisions need to be made. An embezzler may be truly sorry but keeping them in a position where they control money would be bad for a variety of reasons (such as putting them in a near occasion of sin). In catholic Theology even those sins which are forgiven still require cleansing due to retained attachment to sin after death, this punishment / purification is called purgation and occurs in purgatory.
- throwaway9980 5y ago
  Yeah, for this to be exactly the same the assumption would be that adherence to a certain dogma is a strict requirement for continued participation in society. Oh wait...
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
bsder 5y ago
> This is exactly the same 'cancel culture' behavior that many US Republicans like to decry. Hypocrisy is a central tenet of the US Republican platform. "Laws for thee but not for me" is a cornerstone of their belief system.
- tbihl 5y ago
  That took longer than expected.

cameldrv 5y ago

The scary part about this is that if this random Catholic lay group can get access to this information, that it's overwhelmingly likely that foreign intelligence agencies and other groups know everyone who uses Grindr and can use this for blackmail.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
x0x0 5y ago
Sounds like a reason not to embrace homophobia as policy. So it shouldn't matter if intelligence agencies get this info -- being gay in the military or government is fine.
- dylan604 5y ago
  While I do not agree with it, it is a religious belief. That puts it in a different bracket. Religions get to do things that normal people cannot do.
  - worik 5y ago
    Why?
    - inkblotuniverse 5y ago
      Collective bargaining.
      - worik 5y ago
        What a good answer! Worth more than a upvote!!
    - dylan604 5y ago
      Why what? Why I don't agree with it? - Because I don't care what anyone does as long as it doesn't negatively affect anyone/anything else. I just don't have time to care about other people's shit as I have enough of my own shit to worry about. It's in a different bracket? - Because in the USofA, religions are put in a separate bracket. That's how it was founded. Religions get to do things others can't? - Because SCOTUS has decided that churches get to ignore certain protections of protected classes because of their religious dogma. They have spoken, so that's how it is.

dylan604 5y ago

So the people doing the outting bought the data to peruse, which at this time is legal. The people selling the data also broke no laws. The data was originally obtained through 3rd party networks that apparently are also not breaking any laws. Essentially, everything here has been legal. Is doxing illegal? Even if these people had used a hacked data dump, did they do anything illegal? Putting a pin in the app selling this data being morally/legally right/wrong, let's talk about people publicly putting their personal information on a site/app that is designed to use that data to connect you with another like minded person. Even if the app/site does not share that data, would it be legally wrong for the matched person to recognize and then do the outting? I get the desire to connect with someone might be very strong, but when you have this much to lose by being outted, you'd think the risk would be too great to actually follow through. Again, I'm not a millenial or newer, so all of thse types of apps/sites are just so different from how I think. <shrugs>

joshuaheard 5y ago
Yes, it may be illegal, in civil court. It's the tort of "public disclosure of private facts". Under California law, the public disclosure of private facts is defined as (1) a public disclosure of (2) private facts about an individual (3) that would offend the average person, that (4) was not of legitimate public concern; and (5) where defendant published private facts with reckless disregard for their truth or falsity. You could sue for compensatory damages: Loss of reputation, shame and hurt feelings, damage to the plaintiff’s trade or occupation, or loss of business income resulting from the disclosure. (Link to source: https://www.shouselaw.com/ca/personal-injury/harm-to-reputation/public-disclosure-of-private-facts/ https://www.shouselaw.com/ca/personal-injury/harm-to-reputat...)
- avalys 5y ago
  1) Maybe this is of legitimate public concern? 2) The last point - which must be present, thanks to the word “and” - seems to imply that publishing facts you have good reason to believe are true would be excluded.
  - 5y ago

jmcgough 5y ago

Grindr has also been used by oppressive regimes to find and imprison gay people: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2020/10/02/egypt-police-lgbt-dating-apps-grindr-jailed-torture-sexual-abuse-human-rights/ https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2020/10/02/egypt-police-lgbt-dati... Add that to 3rd party apps that can find your exact location (https://www.engadget.com/2018-09-15-grindr-location-info.html https://www.engadget.com/2018-09-15-grindr-location-info.htm...) and Grindr becomes a dangerous weapon against LGBT people.

jacquesm 5y ago
Smartphones are dangerous in some contexts.
- CamperBob2 5y ago
  Then again, many powerful tools are.
  - ashtonkem 5y ago
    Most dangerous tools are predictable in their danger. Take firearms; modern firearms are reliable[0] and tend to do exactly what their current handler intends. You would not for example expect your firearm to leave its case in the middle of the night and blow your windows out, for example. Smart phones are unpredictable in their danger. You would not expect Grindr to sell you out to an oppressive regime, for example. Nor would you expect your private dating profile to get you fired. These are unpredictable outcomes well outside the range of what most users would expect. 0 - Truly accidental discharges where the firearm goes off without a trigger press are rare and make the news. Most negligent discharges are the result of people mishandling the firearm, rather than the firearm doing something unexpected.
    - phkahler 5y ago
      >> Nor would you expect your private dating profile to get you fired. I think the mistake is thinking those profiles are private. How could you ever meet someone without some ability for people to see your profile? I've never tried any dating sites, so may be overlooking something obvious to others.

worik 5y ago

Why is there no market for properly secure smart phones? I would have thought the market would be huge.

dylan604 5y ago
Is this a problem solely on smart phone security? Let's say the data being collected by the app someone is using is on a hypothetically secure phone. Isn't the real breach from the apps collecting more data than necessary to provide the functionality the app provides, and then selling that data to anyone with the right amount of cash? If the app is free so the selling of the data is the number one source of income, then as "enlightened" technerds we shouldn't be too surprised this can happen. However, it's not illegal. Is it the selling of user data collected by your service the thing that needs to be made illegal? How would that even work?
kube-system 5y ago
Because the phone isn't the problem, they are relatively secure. But when you install applications on your phone which mishandle your data or even sell it -- it doesn't matter how secure your phone is. The problem is the business culture and legal environment of software development. It's profitable and often legal to abuse data.
- dylan604 5y ago
  A secure phone or more importantly a secure phone OS would not allow an app to collect information like this. The exact geo-location is not something an app like this needs. A "find someone with in 10 kms" is probably good enough, but "allow me to be found within less than a meter" is just waiting for abuse. If it is a 911/999 app, then sure, let them have my exact location. However, the center of the "within 10 km" needs to be significantly offset from my position, otherwise, it's kinda pointless.
  - kube-system 5y ago
    That’s just a tiny example of the data that can be abused. In this instance, the existence of a profile at all is abusable data, and there’s not much of a way around that other than being able to trust the application.

oh_sigh 5y ago

I'm torn on this one. I feel bad for the priest, but at the same time he chose to devote his life to an organization that hates people like him and has played a role in anti-gay sentiment throughout the world. Also, nothing wrong with being gay, but there is something wrong with having a libido so out of control that you're looking for hookups literally every day.

_vertigo 5y ago
So, it's his fault for being part an institution that's judgmental of certain sexual preferences, but also you're, like, totally judging him for his sexual preferences?
- oh_sigh 5y ago
  Yes. If you elide/abstract all details away, you can make anything sound hypocritical. Let's take a food analogy: The Catholic church has the equivalent viewpoint of "Anyone who likes pizza more than hamburgers is wrong and has no place here". My viewpoint is "Binge eating disorders are bad and you should seek professional help if you have that disorder".
  - elliekelly 5y ago
    Except being gay isn't a disorder so there's no "professional help" he could or should have sought.
    - vokep 5y ago
      Except sex addiction is, gay or not. It seems uncertain if he really was having gay hookups all the time, or just was using the app. It does seem implied that the data points towards lots of hookups though.
    - oh_sigh 5y ago
      Notice how I never said that being gay was a disorder, and even said "There is nothing wrong with being gay". It seems like you have issues with the Catholic church rather than me. The disorder I spoke of would be sex addiction, which exists independently of what gender a person is attracted to.

perardi 5y ago

I’d be curious to see how secure Grindr’s servers actually are, because if someone really enterprising could combine this location hunting and get access to someone’s message history…hoo boy. Not solely for the purposes of out-ing people. Grindr messages are, well, I’ve seen things, man. It’s one thing to get outed—it’s another to get your scandalous message history splashed across the internet as well. The blackmail potential is huge.

gjsman-1000 5y ago
And in the meantime... don't do things that could get you blackmailed if you can help it.
- dylan604 5y ago
  A leopard can't change its spots. It's not like you telling me to stop using an app that allows me to do something illegal. You're litterally telling someone to don't be a certain sexual orientation just because the current segment of socialtal beliefs doesn't like it. It doesn't work that way.
  - southeastern 5y ago
    Well, rather they shouldn't pick a profession dedicated to not doing that thing. Even if they were straight, I believe relationships wouldn't be allowed for them.
- ulfw 5y ago
  And in the meantime... maybe don't post really not well thought out comments on Hackernews. This is shockingly naive and ignorant. There's 1000s of things people could potentially get blackmailed for by bad actors. Not just sexual behavior. Brushing that aside like it's a non-issue show lack of maturity.

umvi 5y ago

This brings up an interesting dilemma. For example, there are some religious schools that require you to agree to certain living standards in order to attend (such as Biola, BYU, etc.). For example, no premarital sex, no drugs, etc (rules depends on religion and institution). Say you attend such a school and decide to break the agreement you signed and go to a party and do drugs and have sex, etc. Then, at the party, you get raped. So, you report the rape to the police and during the investigation into the crime the university discovers you were at the party breaking the agreement you signed. Does the university have a right to terminate your membership at the institution based on information it got from a police report?

gjsman-1000 5y ago
Already a settled issue, Universities have removed students who had "extreme" beliefs in the past, or for going to parties without masks, or not being vaccinated. Because "extreme" is arbitrary, and universities can remove students, no reason why not. She might sue, but that's up to her. If you can remove a student for not being vaccinated, you can remove a student for violating your code of conduct.
dogorman 5y ago
Don't sign these sort of moronic agreements if you aren't willing to keep them. Instead, go to a secular school that doesn't make such demands. If more people chose not to give these schools their tuition money, they will be pressured to reform. You may as well go to their church then complain when they shun you. It's self-inflicted. Don't go to their dumb church and don't go to their dumb school either.
elliekelly 5y ago
No. It would be retaliation under Title IX.
- watwut 5y ago
  Title IX does not apply to schools that do not receive federal funding. And these schools have tons of double standards in their rules anyway.

dmix 5y ago

> In 2018, Grindr, which uses highly granular location information, was found to have shared users’ anonymized locations, race, sexual preferences, and even HIV status with third-party analytic firms. I've become pretty cynical at this point to the endless stream of privacy issues but even I found this part shocking. Even extremely private health conditions were shared with 3rd-party advertisers? And they thought anonymizing a few attributes was good enough protections while including timestamped GPS locations? This ranks up there with the worst of them...

8bitsrule 5y ago

A Faraday bag might help. (Not an endorsement of this product.) https://privacypros.io/faraday-bags/ https://privacypros.io/faraday-bags/