Grindr data-sharing enforcement
Norway’s data-protection authority fined Grindr NOK 65 million in 2021 for disclosing personal data to advertising partners without a valid legal basis or an exception to the GDPR prohibition on processing special-category data.
The enforcement record treats the fact that someone uses Grindr as data concerning sexual orientation or sex life. That matters even when a transmitted field does not explicitly label the person’s orientation. Norwegian appeal bodies and courts upheld the core conclusions, including the Borgarting Court of Appeal in October 2025.
The case grounds Case for privacy and security in an inference-aware view of sensitivity. App membership, location, device identifiers, and advertising flows can jointly reveal intimate facts that no single field states directly.