"Grindr's ex-privacy chief accused top executives of shrugging off system bugs that retained 'billions' of user photos", 15 June 2023

The former head of privacy at LGBTQ+ dating and social networking app Grindr has accused the company of callously ignoring the app's storage and sharing of user data, including intimate photos and HIV status.

In a wrongful termination and retaliation lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Wednesday, former Chief Privacy Officer Ron De Jesus accused the company of illegally retaining data and violating global and US privacy laws.

De Jesus alleges that the company fired him in January after he raised concerns about the company prioritizing "profit over privacy," per court documents.

"In other words, deleted users' private communications, including naked photos and other highly sensitive content, such as HIV status are not only still stored in Grindr's systems, but also its vendor systems, and potentially retrievable by any employee of Grindr, or its third-party support vendor, through a backdoor to Grindr's application," De Jesus claimed in the lawsuit.

In the lawsuit, De Jesus claimed that a technical bug identified in the app allowed for user data including "billions" of nude photos to be stored—even after account deletion.

De Jesus claimed that after he shared his privacy concerns with executives, he was iced out of an executive retreat. And when he sent a strongly worded email  about potential illegalities on January 5, 2023, De Jesus claimed he was fired hours later and told he was not a "good fit."

Patrick Lenihan, a Grindr Spokesperson, told Insider in a statement that De Jesus' claims in the suit are "definitively inaccurate."