Keeping Minors Off Grindr

Grindr is more than a casual dating app. It’s a social, community, and lifestyle platform for the GBTQ+ community, the digital gayborhood in your pocket. Our users average more than an hour a day on the app chatting, building relationships, getting advice when traveling to a new city, and networking.

Critically, Grindr is only for adults aged 18 and over who agree to our Terms, Community Guidelines, and Privacy Policy. We do not want minors on the platform and go to great lengths to prevent them from posting a profile or using the app. Our team continuously evaluates and enhances our multi-prong strategy to monitor for, screen, block, and remove underage user profiles and communications by:

• Categorizing our app under the most age-restrictive settings in the Apple and Google app stores so that only devices permitted to access adults-only apps can download Grindr. 

• A mandatory age gate barring prospective users who enter a birth date indicating they’re younger than 18. Not only are they unable to create an account and publish a profile at the time, but their device is banned from creating a Grindr account until they turn 18.

• A robust and dedicated human content moderation and customer support team that reviews user profiles and communications and bans accounts at the device level if they are suspected to belong to minors or discuss topics related to minors. All underage reports are flagged for immediate, prioritized attention. The most severe cases, including suspected child endangerment, receive the highest priority in our review queue.

• AI and machine learning tools that review user-provided information to proactively identify and ban problematic accounts. 

• Providing users with easy-to-use reporting tools and encouraging them to report problematic user profiles, messages, or other content. Our users play an active role in reporting accounts that they suspect may belong to minors or anyone seeking minors, which are then reviewed by our moderation team. All underage reports are flagged for immediate attention.

• Cooperating with law enforcement and other relevant third parties to support investigations and help hold those who misuse our platform accountable. Our Trust & Safety team is trained to identify, escalate, and, where appropriate, report child endangerment scenarios to law enforcement in partnership with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). This includes an emergency escalation channel for situations that require an immediate response, such as an active threat to a child or an imminent in-person meeting. 

• Partnerships with child protection organizations like Thorn to support the automatic identification, banning, and reporting of child sexual abuse material. We are members of and regularly work with online child safety groups, including the Tech Coalition and WeProtect Global Alliance, to combat the industry-wide challenge of minors accessing age-inappropriate apps and content.

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Our Work with NCMEC

Grindr maintains an active, ongoing partnership with NCMEC. When our Trust & Safety team identifies suspected child sexual exploitation on the platform, we submit reports directly to NCMEC's CyberTipline, which routes cases to the appropriate law enforcement agencies.

We hold regular meetings with NCMEC staff to review our reporting practices and identify areas for improvement. We have a dedicated point of contact for NCMEC and have made significant investments in the technical infrastructure that supports our reporting.

Continuously Improving Our Reporting

Our commitment to child safety is not static. Our moderation staff receive specialized training on child safety escalations, and we have expanded the number of team members trained to handle these cases. We also cooperate directly with law enforcement by responding to legal process requests that support active investigations involving misuse of our platform.

Technology capabilities are also constantly evolving, creating opportunities for new solutions to prevent minors from using platforms like Grindr. GenAI is creating many such opportunities. We have a team of engineers working on new AI-based tools to further improve our ability to identify and remove underage users. 

We at Grindr work hard to try to provide an accessible and safe platform for adult GBTQ+ people to build community. Our approach to keeping minors off the platform is central to that work. If you see or suspect any underage activity on Grindr, please report it immediately here or in the app by tapping the Ø icon in the upper-right corner of the screen → Report → Underage.

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