Dating app Grindr has announced plans to disable its location feature in the Milano-Cortina Olympic Village to protect LGBTQ+ athletes from "real safety risks" at this month's Winter Games.
The platform, which bills itself as "the world's largest social networking app for gay, bi, trans and queer people", normally allows users to discover others nearby and to learn how far they are from each other.
Deactivating that functionality is necessary, Grindr says, in the context of the Olympics where "those same features may become a liability".
The company said in a statement: "When the Olympics come around, athletes face a level of global attention that doesn't exist anywhere else - on the podium and off.
"For gay athletes, especially those who aren't out or who come from countries where being gay is dangerous or illegal, that visibility creates real safety risks.
"Grindr shows users who's nearby and how far away they are. In most contexts, that's useful. In the Olympic Village where thousands of athletes are packed into a small area, those same features may become a liability.
"Someone outside the Village could browse profiles inside it. Distance data could be used to pinpoint someone's exact location. And simply appearing on Grindr tells the world something about a person's identity that, in more than 60 countries, remains a criminal offence."
According to OutSports, a Winter Olympic record 44 out LGBTQ+ athletes will travel to Italy, where competition gets under way on Wednesday.
Grindr first restricted location visibility at the 2022 Winter Olympics and continued the practice at the summer Games in Paris in 2024.
A private video feature, which allows users to view a video only once, will be turned off entirely in the Olympic Village.
The app will also send athletes weekly reminders about risks specific to the Olympic environment and grant free access to usually-paywalled features, including disappearing messages, the ability to unsend messages and screenshot blocking.
