What is Tea Dating Advice? Controversial app lets women review men
A popular app that allows women to review and background check men they go on dates with is reeling from a massive data breach, which has exposed sensitive information about its users.
Tea Dating Advice allows women users to vet their dates, using crowdsourced information and public records to evaluate men, including their dating profiles. The intention, according to the app's website, is to make dating safer for women.
The company said July 25 that a security breach compromised "a legacy data storage system" of about 72,000 images, including photos of users and images from posts, comments and direct messages in the app. The breach has raised concerns amongst its users and reignited conversations online about digital safety and privacy. It has also resurfaced some controversies over the premise of the application, mainly among men.
Here's what to know the app and the recent data breach.
What is the Tea app?
Tea Dating Advice was unveiled in 2023, but only recently surged in popularity after it received increased attention online. Its name comes from the phrase "spilling tea," or to share secrets or gossip.
The app gives users a way to check the personal history of men, including a "Reverse Image Search" feature to catch men catfishing − pretending to be someone else online to attract potential romantic partners. They can also look up phone numbers to "check for hidden marriages," and implement background checks to see whether a man has a criminal record, the company says. Women on the app can also post anonymous dating reviews, share experiences with men they've dated (good and bad, giving them corresponding "green" or "red" flags) and share other information.
According to the company's website, founder Sean Cook launched Tea after he saw his mother go through the "terrifying" experience online dating, when she was catfished and engaged with men who ended up having criminal records.
"At its core, Tea is built on one fundamental belief: Women should never have to compromise their safety while dating," the company says.
Tea says it donates 10% of its revenue to the National Domestic Violence Hotline.
Data breach followed surge in app interest
Though the application has been around for more than two years, it has only recently skyrocketed in popularity after going viral on social media.
The company said in multiple posts between July 22 and July 26 that it was working to verify hundreds of thousands of new user requests made in the the preceding few days. On July 26, Tea said more than 2.5 million new users have requested to join the application over the past week.
As interest in the application surged, so too did divisive discussions. Posts about Tea on social media sites such as X and Reddit have exploded in recent days, with debates raging in some threads about whether it invades men's privacy, while others have applauded the application as a way for women to protect each other from potentially dangerous or harmful men.
What was exposed in the Tea data breach?
The hack, which Tea said it discovered early on July 25, exposed tens of thousands of photos and other personal information from about 72,000 images. No email addresses or phone numbers were accessed, according to Tea, and the breach only affected users who signed up for the app before February 2024.
The company told Paste BN on July 26 that they have "implemented additional security measures and have fixed the data issue." Tea added in a statement on its website that they have contacted law enforcement and are taking steps to "ensure the security of our platform and prevent further exposure."
Hackers were able to exploit Tea's data storage system to access where data was stored before Feb. 24, 2024, because "during our early stages of development some legacy content was not migrated into our new fortified system," according to the company's statement.
What to do if you could be impacted by the data breach
If you joined the app before February 2024 and are concerned about your drivers license information or other personal information being misused, you can find tips on the Federal Trade Commission's Identity Theft website.
Contributing: Mike Snider, Paste BN
Kathryn Palmer is a national trending news reporter for Paste BN. You can reach her at kapalmer@usatoday.com and on X @KathrynPlmr.