Here’s what Grindr is doing to figure out how a right-wing site outed a priest with app data

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

When The Pillar published an article claiming that a high-ranking priest was active on Grindr, the right-wing Catholic website claimed it was based on “commercially available” data that was analyzed to pinpoint Monsignor Jeffrey Burrill’s activities. The Pillar didn’t provide any details about the nature of the data or how they obtained and de-anonymized it, which led many security analysts to wonder how the feat was accomplished.

Among those wondering: Jeff Bonforte, the CEO of Grindr.

Related: Anti-gay priest on trial for allegedly having sex with men to help “heal” their homosexual desires

“When I first read that story, I went through all the stages of sadness and anger,” Bonforte told LGBTQ Nation.

But when he started to think about how The Pillar did what it claimed to do, he realized he had a lot of questions.

To answer them, Bonforte has started an investigation aiming to replicate The Pillar’s results. Even in the earliest stages, it’s clear that the work is a lot more complicated than people might have been led to believe.

For one thing, Bonforte stresses, Grindr does not sell its data to anyone. “We’re hyper-aware of the risks of our users,” he says. “We not only have information about industry risks, but we’re also very aware of all the challenges the queer community faces around the world.”

In a blog post, Bonforte lays out three possible methods that led to The Pillar getting anonymous data and reverse engineering it to out the priest. None of them involve a breach by Grindr.

The first is that the data came from…

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