The US government is forcing Chinese gaming and technology company Beijing Kunlun Tech to sell the popular gay dating app Grindr, with officials in Washington warning that the foreign ownership of the mobile platform threatens national security, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

The intervention by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (Cfius), the powerful inter-agency US group that vets foreign deals, signalled an intensifying scrutiny of acquisitions involving social networks or companies with vast troves of personal information. It raised questions about whether Chinese buyers would be forbidden from buying a wide range of social networking companies.

The specific concerns Cfius had over the acquisition of an application like Grindr were unclear. The platform allows users to share photos and personal data including their location, age, sexual preferences and HIV status.