A week after the dating app Grindr launched a new feature that would encourage users to get tested regularly for HIV, news broke that the company was sharing HIV information provided by its 3.5 million users. The company has since said it would stop this practice. 

"Grindr had made great strides in reducing the stigma surrounding HIV, with the rollout of new software that would remind the app’s users to get tested and direct them to nearby testing sites. By making testing more normal, its new app will give more people access to this critical service. However, the latest news that Grindr was sharing its users' HIV status is incredibly troubling, even though it has since stopped the practice. By not sharing the users’ HIV status, the company is protecting not just the privacy of its users, but their safety as well. HIV status can be used to discriminate against people in the workplace, at school, for housing and in health care,” says Perry N. Halkitis, dean of Rutgers School of Public Health and an advocate and researcher for LGBTQ rights and health. 

Perry N. Halkitis bio.