A dating safety application designed to allow women to conduct background checks on men and share reports of “red flag” behavior anonymously has suffered a data breach, exposing the images, posts, and comments of thousands of its members.
Tea Dating Advice, a U.S.-based, women-only platform boasting 1.6 million users, has reported “unauthorized access” to approximately 72,000 images uploaded by its users.
Compromised data includes images of women holding photo identification for verification purposes, data which Tea’s privacy policy claims is “deleted immediately” following authentication.
Tea stated that the breach affected members who registered prior to February 2024. The company affirmed it has “acted fast” and is “working with some of the most trusted cyber security experts” to address the issue.
The app has recently seen a surge in popularity, accompanied by criticism from some who allege anti-male bias.
Tea allows women to ascertain if potential partners are married or registered sex offenders, and to perform reverse image searches to guard against “catfishing,” a practice involving the use of deceptive online identities.
A key, and often debated, feature of Tea allows users to share information regarding their experiences with men they have dated, highlighting both negative (“red flag”) and positive (“green flag”) attributes.
The company asserts that the compromised photos “can in no way be linked to posts within Tea.”
The platform employs screenshot blocking to prevent the external sharing of posts.
However, on Friday, the company acknowledged that an additional 59,000 images, consisting of posts, comments, and direct messages dating back over two years, were also accessed during the breach.
“We’re taking every step to protect this community – now and always,” Tea stated.
BBC News has reached out to Tea for comment.
Sean Cook, a software engineer, founded the company in November 2022, citing his mother’s online dating experiences as his inspiration.
In a May interview with Medium, he expressed his concern over “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.”
However, such platforms have faced criticism from some men – and women – who argue that they expose men to potential privacy violations and defamation.
Earlier this year, Nikko D’Ambrosio initiated legal proceedings against Meta, the parent company of Facebook, citing defamatory statements made about him in the “Are We Dating the Same Guy” chat group.
The lawsuit was subsequently dismissed by a federal judge in Illinois.
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