Every Olympics, athletes basically end up living in a giant fish tank. The world is watching, the cameras are everywhere, and privacy gets thin fast. That’s part of the job when you’re competing. But off the clock, that same visibility can create real risk for LGBTQ+ athletes, especially anyone who isn’t out publicly or who comes from a country where being gay can still be criminalized.
That’s the logic behind Grindr’s latest Olympic move to once again tighten privacy settings inside the Olympic Village during Milano Cortina 2026, continuing a policy it previously used for Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and Paris 2024 Olympics.
“The Olympic Games bring heightened visibility, which can create real safety risks for LGBTQ+ athletes, especially those who are not out or come from countries where being LGBTQ+ is dangerous or illegal,” Grindr’s chief product officer, AJ Balance, stated in a press release. “These temporary changes are about reducing that risk and giving users greater control of their privacy while keeping the app available.”
Grindr’s whole thing is proximity. It shows people nearby and, depending on settings, how far away they are. Most of the time, that’s useful. In a hyper-concentrated environment like the Olympic Village, though, proximity tools can become a safety issue. Location signals can be exploited. Distance readouts can give away more than people realize. And simply having a Grindr profile visible can unintentionally disclose something deeply personal.
Grindr’s putting out the clear message that athletes can still use the app normally, but the Village is a special case—and it needs special rules.
MORE: Grindr Review: The OG Gay Hookup App That’s Still Running the Block
What Grindr Is Changing Inside the Village
Grindr’s core feature, at its simplest, is that it shows you who’s nearby and how far away they are. In most cities, that’s the whole point. In the Olympic Village, where thousands of people are packed into a tight footprint and the world is paying attention, that same nearby logic can create a safety problem.
So Grindr says it’s restricting a few key features inside the Village boundaries:
- Explore and Roam will be disabled within Village boundaries. Those features typically let you browse people in other places without physically being there. During the Games, Grindr says it won’t allow people outside the Village to use those tools to scan for (or message) people inside it.
- “Show Distance” won’t automatically display in the Village. Instead of broadcasting exact proximity by default, Grindr says the distance setting will start off for Village users. People can still opt in to sharing an approximate distance, but they won’t be defaulting into precision mode.
The effect is pretty straightforward in that you can still connect, but you’re not handing over your location breadcrumbs as part of the process.
Free Privacy Features
Grindr also says it’s temporarily giving everyone in the Village access to privacy and safety tools that are usually behind a subscription.
- Disappearing messages, which auto-delete after they’re opened
- Unsend, which lets you remove a message from both sides of the chat
- Screenshot blocking, intended to prevent people from saving profile and chat images
- Report a Recent Chat, which allows reporting a conversation even after it’s ended (up to a day later), with identifying details obscured during the report flow
One feature is getting the opposite treatment: Grindr says its private video option (the “view once” style feature) will be disabled completely inside the Village.
Safety Reminders & No Outside Ads
Beyond feature changes, Grindr says users in the Village will get periodic, Olympics-specific safety reminders and links to privacy resources in multiple languages, alongside safety info connected to the International Olympic Committee.
And to keep the Village experience from turning into a marketing feed, Grindr says users inside the Village won’t see third-party advertising there. Instead, the in-app messaging they do see will be limited to Grindr’s health and safety content.
YOU MIGHT ALSO DIG: AdultFriendFinder Review (Don’t Sleep on This OG Hookup Site)
Why This Matters
If you’re an LGBTQ+ person who has traveled and done the “wait, what are the laws here?” spiral before opening a dating app, you already understand the bigger point. A global event compresses people, attention, and risk into the same space. For some athletes, privacy isn’t just comfort. It’s protection.
The post Grindr Is Tightening Privacy Settings for Athletes at the 2026 Winter Olympics appeared first on VICE.
