Depressed young woman in bedroom holding a mobile phone
A dating safety app that allows women to do background checks on men and anonymously share âred flagâ behaviour has been hacked, exposing thousands of membersâ images, posts and comments.
Tea Dating Advice, a US-based women-only app with 1.6 million users, said there had been âunauthorised accessâ to 72,000 images submitted by women.
Some included images of women holding photo identification for verification purposes, which Teaâs own privacy policy promises are âdeleted immediatelyâ after authentication.
Tea said the breach affected members who signed up before February 2024. It added it had âacted fastâ and was âworking with some of the most trusted cyber security expertsâ.
The app has recently experienced a surge in popularity - as well as criticism from some who claim it is anti-men.
Tea lets women check whether potential partners are married or registered sex offenders as well as run reverse image searches to protect against âcatfishingâ, where people use fake online identities.
But one of the most controversial aspects of Tea is that it allows women to share information on men they have dated to âavoid red flagsâ but also highlight those with âgreen flagâ qualities.
The company said the breached photos âcan in no way be linked to posts within Teaâ.
The firm blocks screenshots so that posts are not shared outside the app.
But on Friday it also admitted that an additional 59,000 images from the app showing posts, comments and direct messages from over two years ago were accessed.
Tea said: âWeâre taking every step to protect this community - now and always.â
BBC News has contacted Tea for comment.
The company was set up in November 2022 by Sean Cook, a software engineer who said he was inspired to create Tea after witnessing his motherâs online dating experiences.
He told Medium in May: âI was shocked by how easy it was for catfish, scammers and criminals to take advantage of women on dating apps and how little traditional dating apps do to protect users.â
However, some men - and women - have challenged these types of groups claiming that they put men at risk of invasion of privacy and defamation.
Earlier this year, an individual named Nikko DâAmbrosio took legal action against Facebookâs owner Meta because of a number of statements made about him in a chat group called âAre We Dating the Same Guyâ.
The lawsuit was thrown out by a federal judge in Illinois.
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