Privacy, Security and GPS-Based Apps: An Inside Look From SCRUFF; Huffington Post, 9/10/14

Eric Silverberg, Huffington Post; Privacy, Security and GPS-Based Apps: An Inside Look From SCRUFF:

"SCRUFF wants to ensure our members both who live in these countries and who travel to these countries stay informed, and in an upcoming release we will be enabling "hide distance" by default for people in these regions.

In addition, we've struck an innovative partnership with ILGA, a non-profit that publishes an annual report of gay and lesbian rights worldwide. Coming soon, when a user travels to a country included in the ILGA report and launches SCRUFF, he will see an alert informing him of the presence of local laws criminalizing homosexual activity. By increasing awareness about these laws, we hope to keep our members vigilant and raise the global pressure for reform.

Ultimately, the possibility of location discovery is something we all must consider whenever we use location-based apps for dating, traveling, hooking up, or making friends. As the stakes have increased, app designers must meet the challenge of building robust systems that incorporate advanced location obfuscation techniques. Though today's headlines happen to target gays, the challenges of location security affect any religion, gender, sexuality or minority group who finds community through location-based apps."