Iphone app maker condemns sex attack on B.C. boy
Grindr has requested Vancouverite to use an alternate picture obscuring the model's face on their promo material.
By Salim Jiwa
NORTH VANCOUVER – (Update 1) The maker of a controversial Iphone app says it condemns an attack on a young boy that cops say resulted from the kid using Grindr – which allows gays to detect proximity of a fellow user as well as conversation.
Police blamed the geo-tagging Iphone app Grindr available on Apple Itunes for a sexual assault on a 15-year-old boy.
Bren Tynan, 54, from Vancouver was charged with sexual assault, sexual interference and invitation to sexual touching.
Police said the suspect met the victim through geo-social networking app Grindr which allows app users to detect other users who are in proximity and converse with them.
“Grindr strongly condemns the inappropriate and criminal use of our service and actively cooperates with local authorities on any alleged illegal activity on our service,” said a statement sent to Vancouverite by a Grindr spokesman.
“The victim told police he met the suspect through a geo-social networking application called “GRINDR.” which is a social networking tool that targets gay and bisexual men,” said Cpl. Marlene Morton.
“Its basic concept is to connect the user to other gay and bisexual men who are nearby,” she said.
“The application works on mobile devices that have a built-in GPS function,” she added.
RCMP’s sex crimes unit Sgt. Jeanette Thiesen cautioned parents to be aware of what their children are doing.
“Advances in technology and social networking make it easier for our children to come into contact with individuals who may try to harm them or take advantage of them,” said the North Vancouver cop.
“We encourage all parents to have open and frank discussions with their children about their personal lives,” said Thiessen.
On Apple’s Itunes, the program description states: “Find gay, bi, or curious guys on your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad with Grindr. Fast, fun, and free, it’s the place for gay, bi, or curious men to hang out with the same sex. Grindr is the largest all male location based network in the world. Over 600,000 men globally are part of the Grindr Network, with 2,000 new guys joining everyday.”
Apple states you have to be 17 to be able to join the network.
But a statement by Grindr sent to Vancouverite states: “Grindr has a very strict 18 years -and-over terms of use policy that all users of our service must agree to, additionally we actively monitor for potential violations of this policy and bar anyone who violates its terms. We voluntarily have this policy in place to help protect the safety of minors. Unfortunately, as with any Web technology, people can find ways to bypass even the most robust control mechanisms.”
Grindr also urged parents to use Iphone’s built-in protection system to stop their children from downloading apps with adult content and capabilities.
Tynan was arrested in Vancouver by the sex crimes unit. He will be back in court on Wednesday.
To use Iphone’s settings which help control what kids download, see this link: http://www.apple.com/iphone/how-to/#settings.restrictions.
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The recognition of on the net dating need to be acquiring an influence around the neighborhood bar scene.
I cannot believe anybody thinks it’s ok for a 54 year old man to hook up with even an 18 year old man! I am glad this man got caught out because he shouldn’t be chasing people so much younger then him, he sounds like a predator and I for one as a fellow grindr user am absolutely fed up with being harassed by these older men that think they can get into a much younger mans pants. Go find someone your own age!
The thing is Justin, despite your disapproval, it’s perfectly legal for an 18 yr old to have sex with anyone older than them, 54 or 84 it’s no ones business but theirs. If the minor was deliberately and fraudulently passing himself off as 18 it’s HIM that should be charged not the other person.
Very true, Emre. I think Apple should also condemn the actions of the stupid 15 year old boy who LIED about his age to join the so-called app. It takes two to tango, you know. The responsibility should lie on BOTH parties. If I was the parent, I would put the boy to military school. Or he should face trial in juvenile court for his actions.
This article is incomplete to the point of being irresponsible. I’m not sure where I place any blame in this case, but it certainly doesn’t go to Grindr. As far as the “attacker” and “victim”, I need a lot more information about what happened before either label is assigned. Why is a 15-year-old on Grindr? That’s bad news for adults. If I meet someone in a club, I assume they’re 21. If I meet someone on Grindr, I assume they’re 18.
This particular case is a bit over the top. I know the guy that was charged with “attacking” the 15 year old, and I know him well enough to know that “attacking” is extremely out of character for him. This guy is an upstanding member of society who happened to get himself into a bit of trouble. But what was the 15 year old doing on Grindr in the first place? If you need to be 18 to sign up, then this kid was obviously lying about his age. He’s a minor, but that’s where police should be holding his parents responsible. This makes me somewhat angry…the system has GOT to change.
The article above is extremely vague. I personally have the app and it doesn’t exactly have a giant arrow that points you in the direction of someone else. It simply tells you roughly how close to you they are. The pic posted above you’ll see the estimate in the top right, 493 feet. That seems like a large radius to me. Another point, unless the boy had a pic showing him outside of his work or something its highly unlikely the pic even showed where he was at.
I’m not advocating under-age sex but the article doesn’t state if the 15 yr old (who said he was older) met the man consensually somewhere or if the older man actually attacked and kidnapped the boy. I’m assuming he didn’t kidnap him since it wasn’t in the charges listed.
I’m not sure if it was on purpose or not but the story seems intentionally vague in order to spark a debate. I would suggest the writer provide a bit more information to readers who might not understand the application or how it works.
@News Editor: An application isn’t inherently bad just because someone bad uses it. Teenagers already feel invincible and do stupid stuff all the time, you add in the anonymity of the internet and they will easily change the year of their birth to do things they shouldn’t be allowed to. Apple changing the age on the application is like putting a lock on a door… it keeps honest people out.
Whats the photos of the two parties used in the app at the time?
It is not clear that he was “attacked”. A very common use of this app among gay and bisexual men is for dating and NSA consensual sex. Also it is presumed that all users are legal adults. If this 15 year old purported himself to be of age for sexual consent, agreed to meet this man for sex and sex occurred…that is sufficient for a “sexual assault”.
At this point, I havent seen any evidence that the man accused KNOWINGLY, or had good reason to know that he was engaging in sex with a 15 year old. It is an app for adults, its use is restricted to adults, and it reasonable to assume a TEENAGE boy on an adult app used for sex could be 18, 19, etc.
Charges of sexual assault have been laid. Clear cut right? Wait and see the evidence.
If you are 54 and chasing teenagers, the burden should be on you to establish they are legal
You can’t “blame” the application for the crime. However the attacker was able to use the application to find a male nearby and then attack him. Probably looked at his profile pic and location, then found him on the street and followed him until he could attack him.
And how can you blame the parents? You can buy apple gift cards at Walmart, can’t you? So the kid could have loaded a pre-paid card, then used it to buy whatever applications or tunes he wanted. How does that make it the parents’ fault? The boy is 15, more than old enough to be given a bit of responsibility and freedom to make decisions without his parents hovering on his every move. The whole point of parenting is to raise them to be responsible, and then giving them the opportunity to be responsible, and sometimes to make bad decisions.
I’m sorry this boy was hurt.
So who’s CC was used to purchase the APP? Information was apparently falsified to purchase the APP (if it states a user must be 17 or over). Isn’t that CC fraud? Maybe the parents should be charged with CC Fraud and neglect. Parents buy these “toys” for their kids and expect it to act as a babysitter. An APP isn’t to blame.. poor parenting is. Unfortunately.. there are no laws against stupid people pro-creating.
if you read the complete article you would find that it is a free application and as noted after your post you can buy istore gift cards at walmart which in the case it wasn’t free wouldn’t be a case of cc fraud
I think, although it’s a unfortunate this happened.. The child’s parents should maybe not be allowing their kids free access to the iTunes stores.. the phones have parental controls on them… that prevent apps from being installed unless the unlock code is presented..
This is a tragedy There are so many sick old people lurking online ,looking for innocent victems ,to satisfy their twisted Lifestyles.At least the guy was busted but sadly there are many many more.Vancouver home of deviants and weirdos Kids just got to learn the hard way sometimes Damm
OMG SOMEONE CAN FIND OUR KIDS LET’S HIDE THEM!
Editor How is raising the download age going to do anything? The victim was 15 and Apple states the download age was 17. Raising it to 19 or 21 would have little effect as I’m sure a 15 year old can add the additional years to his sign in. Apple geo-tagging always pops up a warning to let you decide whether or not you want your location known. If anything should be done the geo tagging should be locked out in settings by a code for parental control. Raising the age would do nothing, and only give the appearance of doing something, hey maybe the editor should go into politics.
Shows how primitive some people are. Just because the technology is new, and you are clueless on how it works, doesn’t mean it should be blamed for crimes.
It is however a tool for trolls to prey
So Let me get this Straight, GRINDR is an app for Gay and bisexual men to meet, and this 15 year old boy had it on his phone, who needed to be 17 to even join, the boy must also take some of the blame for leaving himself open to the chance of a bad meeting, and as for the man, attacking anyone is wrong, NO is NO, as for a computer app being responsible ,,hogwash, each of us is responsible for the decisions we make in life and that includes software that may track us or put us at risk, in the end the choices we make define how our lives are played out, choose wisley
How can a computer application be “blamed for a sexual assault?” If this young man had been attacked after talking on the telephone with is attacker would the headline read “Telephone blamed for sexual assault.” Stop living in the dark ages; neither Apple, iTunes, Grindr nor Steve Jobs is “responsible” for this attack.
This young man was attacked by a bad guy. Yes he made a bad decision but let’s lay the blame where it belongs, on the attacker.
But it is certain that proximity geo-tagging software presents a danger when it is in the hands of a predatory person of whatever sexual orientation. It presents information about a potential target as well – in this case a gullibe kid. At the very least, Apple should raise the download age for this app since sexual consent varies in all countries where you can download this. That speaks to social responsibility for both Apple and the creator of the app.
Don’t worry, Apple will soon remove the app all together rather than deal with it. Oh wait, how will Steve Jobs meet anyone then?
Don’t be ridiculous. The software does not present a danger, the irresponsible use of the software can lead to danger. That is miles away from “…blaming geo-tagging Iphone app Grindr available on Apple Itunes for a sexual assault…”
The fact is, words like; Apple, iTunes, iPhone and geo-tagging draw clicks to your site. It’s nothing but sensational yellow journalism for the SEO era.
there are far more geo-tagging applications than grindr now as far as its potential threat i can truly see that now if there were limitations on how close they could truly say you were for instance no matter how close you were to another app user the smallest distance they would give is less than one mile away would cut back on a potential stalker who would have to have to much time on there hand to do a 1 mile radius search of his area especially if you were in the city with building with multiple floors. I honestly feel sorry for the child,but then again falsely providing information was a large factor in why this event happened so maybe they should have a verifier just like with emails
Perhaps spending some time using the application could have cleared up this misconception about how the proximity geo-tagging works.
To track an individual using Grindr alone is pretty much impossible. The other party would have to divulge far more detailed location information than the limited data generated by the application. In other words, they’d actually have to start communicating with each other, like people do on Facebook, J-Date, eHarmony, etc.
Also, if the picture used to illustrate this story is a real person unconnected with the alleged crime then that is a pretty low act by the author.
Oh, please, Editor. Could you clutch your pearls any tighter? The kid knew exactly what Grindr was for when he downloaded it. The “victim” says he met the older man through the application. It certainly doesn’t sound like he was followed around by the suspect so he could be assaulted.
It’s also clear that you have absolutely no idea how Grindr works in the first place. It gives a general read by GPS of how far away a person is, but is wildly inaccurate depending on the conditions of its that triangulation. You can not “track” someone’s movements, in the traditional sense. Also, in order for Grindr to work, the application has to be active on the device. Please do more research before crowing about how this is Apple’s or Grindr’s fault.
The social responsibility falls directly in the parents’ lap for allowing their 15-year-old son to download applications that are for ages 17+. iPhones have parental controls that allow them to block those apps. Parents need to be more active and tech savvy if they’re going to be their kids the latest gadgets.
Clearly you have never used this app. The geo-tagging ability would have allowed the two guys to contact each other based upon the fact they were near… nothing else. This kid not only has downloaded and used an app that is above his download age, he also has created a profile and responded to incoming requests. Gullible? I think that’s arguable.
I am in no way defending any form of pedophilia and I’m sorry this kid has had a bad experience but I’m also very concerned for the older man who, in this instance, could have believed he was dealing with another guy over the age of consent purely because he was using the app.
Caveat Emptor indeed!