According to experts from the International Institute of Cyber Security (IICS), the best ethical hacking institute, just a few months after Grindr, a gay dating app, was bought by a Chinese company, the U.S. government began investigating this negotiation arguing for national security reasons.
The Foreign Investment Committee, a group led
by the Treasury Department charged with investigating foreign acquisitions of
U.S. companies, began investigating the agreement that the Chinese
company bought Grindr because they are concerned about the confidentiality of
data stored by the dating app (the app even has a database of members who
suffer from HIV infection).
According to the best ethical hacking institute,
Grindr is used by more than 3 million people daily and was acquired by the
Chinese company Beijing Kunlun Tech about a year ago. Privacy activists and
national security specialists expressed concern about this issue, arguing that
China might be forging a massively sensitive or embarrassing information mass
collection campaign. For example, the Chinese government might know if any
member of the U.S. Army or public official has HIV infection through the
database of this app.
Allegedly, the Treasury Department has been
pressuring the Chinese company to sell Grindr for national security issues,
although department officials did not respond to public questioning of the
incident.
A Grindr spokesman recently stated that the
company has never revealed a single data of its users, regardless of whether
they are in the United States, China or any other place where Grindr operates;
the spokesman also stated that there is no relationship between the company and
the Chinese government.
Although the internal sources could not provide
evidence of the alleged leaking of data from Grindr users, it is known that
changes in internal communication processes, implemented shortly after the sale
of the app, make it very difficult to guarantee the safety and privacy of
Grindr data.
Among the changes implemented is the transition
from the company’s communications to WeChat, a Chinese instant messaging
service that has generated concern among activists for the privacy of
information.
According to the best ethical hacking institute,
the U.S. government’s concerns increased when Grindr included an HIV specialist
in his team, which suggests a massive collection campaign on the carriers of
the virus registered in the app; the purposes of this possible campaign are
still unknown.
