CV NEWS FEED // Monsignor Jeffrey Burrill, who resigned from his position as general secretary for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops after the gay dating app Grindr allegedly provided data to third parties, has filed a lawsuit accusing the app of privacy violations and deception.
According to legal news outlet the Daily Journal, Msgr. Burrill’s lawyers filed the lawsuit on his behalf in Los Angeles County Superior Court on July 18.
The lawsuit alleges that Grindr sold Msgr. Burrill’s personal data, including information about Msgr. Burrill’s location, after misleadingly advertising that the app would not do so. The lawsuit also alleges that Grindr concealed from Msgr. Burrill that the personal data could be used to identify him.
Andrew Friedman and Gregory Helmer of Friedman LLP, and James Carr are representing Msgr. Burrill in the suit.
According to the Daily Journal, Grindr issued a statement expressing that the company intends to “vigorously” respond to the lawsuit’s allegations.
In July 2021, the Pillar published an investigative report allegedly using Grindr data to accuse Msgr. Burrill of sexual misconduct in 2021. The Pillar did not state where it received the data from.
Before publishing the report, The Pillar claims it presented the data to the USCCB. Just a day before the report was published, Msgr. Burrill resigned from his position as general secretary of the USCCB, which he had held since November 2020, and withdrew from public ministry. He was reinstated to ministry in the diocese of La Crosse, Wisconsin, in June 2022.
The Pillar’s 2021 publication on the scandal sparked a debate not only within the Catholic Church but also in secular media circles about the use of private data.
The Atlantic ran an article on the issue in August 2021, highlighting questions around invasions of privacy and journalistic ethics. The Washington Post published an article in July 2021 highlighting various responses to the story, with one accusing The Pillar of “McCarthyism,” and others more understanding of the Pillar’s decision to publish the story.
According to the Post, Grindr has previously faced penalties over sharing private information. In January 2021, Norwegian officials fined Grindr more than $11 million for sharing user information with advertising companies.
After the Pillar’s report was published, the Post also reported that “Grindr… initially denied it was even possible for such data to become public, saying in a statement that the incident [regarding Msgr. Burrill] was ‘infeasible from a technical standpoint and incredibly unlikely to occur.’”
According to the Post, Grindr later updated its statement regarding the Pillar’s publication about Msgr. Burrill, stating: “We do not believe Grindr is the source of the data,” and the Post noted that Grindr also “claimed the ‘pieces simply do not add up.’”
