Anyone using Grindr will have to upload an ID document and photos to US company Facetec. https://www.thepinknews.com/2025/07/03/grindr-uk-age-assurance-security/ what could go wrong?! #privacy #onlinesafety #biometrics
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@JamesBaker Once again, I will never, ever verify age or ID to use any online service.
Remember that when regulation makes a clearnet service unusable, the darknet steps up.
I am hoping that age verification kills off the ad supported/central server model for dating apps entirely. The vacuum that opens makes way for decentralized/distributed server model apps where a FOSS app is the whole of the system and each device running it is part of the server network.
There would be no way for Florida, the UK, Russia, Iran, or anyone else to stop it. The app itself could be hosted in any "data sanctuary" jurisidiction or even on the darknet, and like Torbrowser this distribution would be "host anywhere, play everywhere and quite unstoppable."
Only those who cannot be reached by law enforcement of offending jurisdictions would be publicly tied to app development.
The traffic could be disguised rather as Tor bridge traffic is, perhaps to resemble video calls. This part is so ISP's cannot block it without a great deal of work, and such blocks would not be durable over time. At close range, it would even be possible to use Bluetooth to bypass the ISP's entirely. The whole app could even be torified by default, especially if only text and still images or short/low-res video are supported.
Users could simply manually input approximate location such as nearest street intersection or a more precise GPS pin. As this is a manually input "snapshot" location nobody can find you except at your intended broadcast position, which does need to be a safe or defensible position. Best safety practive would be for users to offset their positions by a couple hundred feet, and find each other from there via private messaging. Private messages could be encrypted using nothing fancier than an exchange of GPG keys and running the text through GPG in the app.
This would of course be for those of us who reject age and identity verification and consent to the risk of meeting partners without them. This is not for folks such as many Tindr users who want verification by ID and FB as a gatekeeper. All users would have to accept sole responsibility for their own security, same as it's always been for Gay men cruising the woods.
@JamesBaker and the stupid folk will....
@JamesBaker Grindr has always been a privacy nightmare. It wouldn't surprise me at all if it was planned from the beginning to be a honeypot to get people to willingly put themselves on lists for the coming fascism. We need to stop letting tech moderate our whole lives (and never should have gone along to begin with).
@JamesBaker remember when the gays in 1940’s Germany were all “ come on gents, they can’t stop us all.”? That’s because they were wrong, they could stop them all, so the story never got out. If you give Christian nationalists your information they will use it.
@JamesBaker ah crud I should install it and delete my account
@babble_endanger Yea or write to them with a request to delete the data
@JamesBaker
No problem at all with a private company just having a list of gay people, right? Certainly not in the UK where the government has become increasingly hostile to transgender people. Can't possibly think of anything that could go wrong.
No problem at all with a private company just having a list of gay people, right? Certainly not in the UK where the government has become increasingly hostile to transgender people. Can't possibly think of anything that could go wrong.
@JamesBaker In the current environment? Yeah, that ain’t happening. 😂
@JamesBaker I can't wait for the new administration to decide homosexuality is illegal and use these as ready-made lists of "perverts" that they can target for extermination.
We need to be considering what dangers these technologies, social norms, and laws are presenting when wielded by genocidal fascists.
@JamesBaker
Welp, that's it for Grinder in the UK
Welp, that's it for Grinder in the UK
@megatronicthronbanks @JamesBaker seems like it might be it for quite a few dating sites in UK from the article if it's a legal requirement. Back to hitting on strangers I guess.. (joke)
@JamesBaker All of it. Show me a dating site or app that actually cares about security. It will all just get breached and leaked.
@briankrebs @JamesBaker
Facetec is providing these sensitive verification processes. The Facetec privacy policy is a work of art...
Personal Information Shared
We may share for cross-context behavioral advertising purposes, and may have shared during the preceding 12-month period prior to the Last Updated date of this Privacy Policy, the following categories of personal information:
Identifiers.
Demographic information.
Internet or other electronic network activity information.
Geolocation data.
Inferences.
@JamesBaker ngl i'd love to see a dating app powered by activitypub or some other decentralized tech.
@JamesBaker oh I'm sure it'll all be above board and legitimate. Nothing to see here at all. Particularly under a trump regime.
I could kind of live with this if A) Age assurance providers were all certified to a high privacy standard 😎 There was interoperability so as a user I could choose my preferred provider eg Apple Wallet or Yoti and just provide one company my details once
@JamesBaker the second part is already an internet standard https://verifiablecredentials.dev/
But instead there is no certification. You might send ID documents off to other countries. You might have to do this dozens of times over Discord, Reddit, X, dating site, porn site etc and some sites might pick a provider or method you consider risky.
@JamesBaker I quite my HOA Board because CA requires identity verification (DL or Passport) info be on file. Boards can pay secure 3rd party to keep the info or self-certify with their management company. I didn't trust the security of the management company, so I left the Board. It none of anyone's beeswax where I live, how old I am, and what I look like unless they're a state agency.
Anyway the past week I’ve been working on updating this facts and information page on behalf of @openrightsgrouphttps://www.ageverificationfacts.org.uk/ if you have any questions about it.
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