Paris 2024 Olympics: hidden profile, blocked location… dating apps are taking precautions

Grindr permet en temps normal à ses utilisateurs de se positionner où ils le souhaitent sur une carte du monde, affichant ainsi tous les profils d'une zone géographique précise. Chris DELMAS/AFP

More users but also more risks: dating apps have limited their functionality in certain areas and are issuing warnings before the start of the Paris Olympics, particularly to protect athletes from forced “outing”.

“This feature is unfortunately not available”, indicates the gay dating app Grindr when you try to geolocate yourself in the athletes' village, located in Saint-Denis, north of Paris, where nearly 10,000 athletes live and which has a reputation as a popular meeting place.

“Dating apps are obviously accessible within the village, but geolocation has been disabled by some app publishers”, confirmed the Olympic Organizing Committee to the French gay magazine Têtu.

Grindr normally allows its users to position themselves wherever they want on a world map, thus displaying all the profiles of a specific geographic area.

For an athlete who has not come out or who comes from a country where homosexuality is repressed, “using Grindr can expose them to the risk of being unmasked by curious people who could try to identify them on the application,” the American company warned in a publication on its site Wednesday.

Features limited

A restriction already in effect during the Beijing Winter Games in 2022, recalls the app, which has limited other features within the Olympic Village (profiles are hidden from any search carried out via another location, the display of the distance at which a user is located is disabled by default, screenshots of profiles or conversations are blocked).

Measures taken after several incidents that have highlighted this risk of non-consensual exposure for LGBTQ+ athletes in recent years.

During the Rio Olympics in 2016, the American site The Daily Beast published an article – since removed – in which a journalist recounted his meetings with athletes approached on Grindr, containing details who could potentially identify them.

“This issue mainly concerns Grindr,” a spokesperson for the Tinder app, which saw its usage increase by 350% at the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Games in South Korea, told AFP on Friday.

He indicates that, unlike its competitor, Tinder (which belongs to the American dating site giant Match Group) does not allow users to locate themselves at a specific location, but “only within a perimeter” of at least two kilometers, and that “mutual consent” is required to get in touch with another user.

Enhanced security

However, the company points out that features exist such as the “incognito” mode, which allows the user to only appear on profiles that they have selected themselves.

“It's one of the features that is widely used by LGBTQIA+ communities,” notes Tinder, “especially for people who are still thinking about their sexual orientation or gender identity.”

A paid option nonetheless on Tinder and other dating apps, such as Grindr, Fruitz or Bumble.

For its part, the French app Happn, which focuses on people encountered “in real life” during the day, said on Friday that it had “strengthened” its security measures during the Games, “with dedicated teams available 24/7 to ensure the safety of all users, including athletes”.

“We also allow geolocation to be deactivated for those who wish to do so”, she also stressed.

According to the data reported by its teams, Happn claims to have observed “changes in behavior and an increase in interactions” in recent days between its users, reflecting “a desire among singles to meet people through this event.”

Some 240,000 condoms are being distributed to Olympic athletes this year, a tradition that dates back to the 1988 Olympic Games and is intended to combat the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, including AIDS.