Grindr disabling location feature for Winter Olympics

Grindr has announced plans to disable its location feature within the Milano-Cortina Olympic Village for this month’s Winter Games.

The LGBTQ+ dating app is making the move to in order to protect athletes from 'real safety risks' as certain 'features may become a liability'.

For those who need a reminder, this year's Winter Olympics are taking place between 6 and 22 February in locations across Lombardy and Northeast Italy, after kicking off in Milan with a lavish opening ceremony.

The Olympic Villages are purpose-built residential complexes designed to house the sports stars who have flocked in from around the world, as well as their trainers and other officials during the games.

Of course, being part of the world’s premier international multi-sport event comes with a lot of publicity and attention, so Grindr is taking steps to ensure those in the Village are safe and able to keep their privacy intact.

Grindr announced the new safety plans this week (SOPA Images/Getty Images)

In a statement shared on Monday (2 February), Chief Product Officer AJ Balance issued a press release revealing Grindr's plans.

It read: "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."

The statement continued: "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. "

Grindr outlined how hypothetically, 'someone outside of the Village could browse profiles inside it' and 'distance data could be used to pinpoint someone’s exact location'.

The press release continued: "Simply appearing on Grindr tells the world something about a person's identity that, in more than 60 countries, remains a criminal offence.

"Athletes use the app during the Games the same way they use it at home. We're not changing that. But the Village needs different rules."

The dating app first restricted their location features at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics - a measure which continued at Paris 2024, making Milano Cortina 2026 its third consecutive Games with these protections in place.

The app will also be making a number of features that are usually behind a paywall accessible to those in the Village (Getty Stock Image)

The specific features of the app which will be restricted are the 'Explore and Roam' function' and 'Show Distance'.

Explore and Roam lets users browse profiles in locations other than where they physically are, but during the Games, Grindr are turning these off within Village boundaries, meaning no one outside the Olympic Village will be able to browse or message users inside.

Meanwhile, Show Distance displays how far away other users are, often within a few hundred feet.

During the Games, this will default to off for anyone in the Village - users can choose to share approximate distance if they wish to do so, but it won't happen automatically.

And, to make things even easier for the athletes, Grindr is giving Olympians access to features normally behind the paywall, such as disappearing messages that delete automatically after they're read, the ability to unsend or removes messages from both sides of a conversation, and screenshot blocking which prevents capture of profile photos and chat images.

Additionally, 'private video', which allows viewing only once, will be turned off entirely within the Village and 'report a recent chat' lets users flag a conversation up to 24 hours after it ends with names and photos obscured during reporting.