Grindr limits visibility of Olympic athletes to protect their privacy

Grindr has limited the visibility of Olympic athlete users in an attempt to protect their privacy.

The location-based gay dating app – which has around 13 million monthly users – has an ‘Explore’ feature, which allows for the tracking of any location in the world, but the feature has been modified to exclude profiles logging in from the Olympic Village.

Grindr boss Jack Harrison-Quintana said in a statement: “We want Grindr to be a space where all queer athletes, regardless of where they’re from, feel confident connecting with one another while they’re in the Olympic Village.”

While users staying in the Olympic Village – which is an is an accommodation centre built for the Olympic Games set up in the hosting city, the next of which will be Paris in 2024 – will be able to browse nearby profiles, but the new privacy setting will prevent the athletes from unwanted exposure.

Users logging in to Grindr from the Olympic Village will be told: “Your privacy is important to us. Our Explore feature has been disabled in the Olympic Village so that people outside your immediate area can’t browse here.”

It comes just one month after Grindr removed itself from Apple’s App Store in China, citing a new privacy law was the reason behind their decision, despite initial reports it was due to views on homosexuality in China.

In a statement, a Grindr spokesperson said :”We’ve chosen to remove our app from the app store in China due to the potential increased burden from China’s recently implemented Personal Information Protection Law. We may revisit this in the future.”