A courting security app that enables ladies to do background checks on males and anonymously share “purple flag” behaviour has been hacked, exposing hundreds of members’ pictures, posts and feedback.
Tea Relationship Recommendation, a US-based women-only app with 1.6 million customers, stated there had been “unauthorised entry” to 72,000 pictures submitted by ladies.
Some included pictures of girls holding picture identification for verification functions, which Tea’s personal privateness coverage guarantees are “deleted instantly” after authentication.
Tea stated the breach affected members who signed up earlier than February 2024. It added it had “acted quick” and was “working with a few of the most trusted cyber safety consultants”.
The app has just lately skilled a surge in reputation – in addition to criticism from some who declare it’s anti-men.
Tea lets ladies examine whether or not potential companions are married or registered intercourse offenders in addition to run reverse picture searches to guard in opposition to “catfishing”, the place individuals use faux on-line identities.
However probably the most controversial points of Tea is that it permits ladies to share data on males they’ve dated to “keep away from purple flags” but additionally spotlight these with “inexperienced flag” qualities.
The corporate stated the breached photographs “can under no circumstances be linked to posts inside Tea”.
The agency blocks screenshots in order that posts are usually not shared outdoors the app.
However on Friday it additionally admitted that an extra 59,000 pictures from the app exhibiting posts, feedback and direct messages from over two years in the past had been accessed.
Tea stated: “We’re taking each step to guard this group – now and at all times.”
BBC Information has contacted Tea for remark.
The corporate was arrange in November 2022 by Sean Cook dinner, a software program engineer who stated he was impressed to create Tea after witnessing his mom’s on-line courting experiences.
He informed Medium in Could: “I used to be shocked by how simple it was for catfish, scammers and criminals to make the most of ladies on courting apps and the way little conventional courting apps do to guard customers.”
Nonetheless, some males – and ladies – have challenged all these teams claiming that they put males vulnerable to invasion of privateness and defamation.
Earlier this 12 months, a person named Nikko D’Ambrosio took authorized motion in opposition to Fb’s proprietor Meta due to quite a few statements made about him in a chat group known as “Are We Relationship the Similar Man”.
The lawsuit was thrown out by a federal choose in Illinois.
