Women's dating safety app that vets men breached by hackers after surging popularity

Tea Dating Advice, a safety app that allows women to share information about men they have supposedly dated and do background checks, has suffered a significant data breach. According to the company which touts “dating safety tools that protect women”, 72,000 user images have been exposed.

On Friday, July 25, 2025, the company discovered unauthorised access to their archived data system. Of the 72,000 images submitted by members, 13,000 include selfies and photo IDs submitted for account verification. Though Tea’s privacy policy states that authentication images are “deleted immediately” after the verification process.

That said, the company confirms that the stolen selfie photos "can in no way be linked to posts within Tea" and that the breach does not affect users who signed up after February 2024.

Additionally, 59,000 images publicly viewable in the app from posts, comments and direct messages from over two years were accessed, according to Tea. It says the data was stored to meetlaw enforcement standards around cyberbullying prevention.

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One day prior to the release of Tea’s initial statement, 404 Media reported that 4chan users claimed to be sharing personal data and selfies from Tea after discovering an exposed database. 4chan users said they were sifting through personal data and selfies uploaded to Tea, and then posting that data online, according to screenshots, 4chan posts, and code reviewed by 404 Media.

“Yes, if you sent Tea App your face and drivers license, they doxxed you publicly! No authentication, no nothing. It's a public bucket,” a post on 4chan providing details of the vulnerability reads. “DRIVERS LICENSES AND FACE PICS! GET THE F*** IN HERE BEFORE THEY SHUT IT DOWN!” The thread has since been deleted.

In a statement to the Mirror, a spokesperson for Tea said the company detected a security incident on Friday, July 25 and immediately took steps to contain the incident and launched a full investigation with assistance from external cybersecurity firms. "We have also reached out to law enforcement and are assisting in their investigation," the spokesperson confirmed.

In an updated public statement shared Sunday on Instagram, Tea said they are responding to the incident with "some of the best external cybersecurity experts out there".

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The statement continues: “We care so deeply about this community. And once we get towards the end of our investigation we’ll be reaching out to any affected users directly with free identity protection support”.

The company said it has received over 2.5million requests to join Tea in the past week alone but that response and acceptance times will be delayed.

The U.S.-based app has been a source of debate since its launch in 2023. Tea brands itself as a resource for women to protect themselves while dating by hosting an anonymous forum to seek advice about men they are interested in or report “red flag” behaviour of past dates.

The app also allows users to run background checks, check for registered sex offenders, search for criminal records, and look up phone numbers. Another key feature is the ability to reverse image search to snuff out catfishes - those co-opting someone else’s images or identity.

Screenshots are blocked on the app, all posts are anonymous and women must be verified before joining. The company boasts a community of over 4.6 million women “dedicated to empowering each other”.

Tea has grown in increasing popularity over recent months, becoming the top free app in Apple’s download rankings. However, it has received criticism for violating men’s privacy and has been called the “man-shaming” app.

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