A dating safety app that allows women to examine backgrounds on men and anonymously shares the “red flag” behavior, highlighting images, posts and comments of thousands of members.
The US-based female-keval app tea dating advice with 1.6 million users stated that there was “unauthorized access” for 72,000 images presented by women.
Some include images of women with photo identity for verification purposes, which are “immediately removed” after authentication of their privacy policy of tea.
Chai said that Breach affected members had signed up before February 2024. It said that it was “acted fast” and “was working with some of the most trusted cyber security experts”.
The app has recently experienced an increase in popularity – as well as criticism of some people that claim that it is opposed to men.
Tea allows women to check whether potential partners are married or registered reverse image search along with registered sexual criminals to protect from “catfishing”, where people use fake online identity.
But one of the most controversial aspects of tea is that it allows women to share information about men that they have done “to avoid red flag”, but have also highlighted those with “green flag” properties.
The company said that the violated photos “can not be connected to the post inside the tea in any way”.
The firm blocks the screenshot so that the post cannot be shared outside the app.
But on Friday, it was also admitted that an additional 59,000 pictures were accessed from the app showing posts, comments and direct messages from two years ago.
Tea said: “We are taking every step to protect this community – now and always.”
BBC News has contacted tea for comment.
The company was founded in November 2022 by a software engineer Sean Cook, who said that he was inspired to make tea after watching his mother’s online dating experiences.
He told Medium in May: “I was surprised by how easy it was to take advantage of women on dating apps for catfish, scammers and criminals and how low traditional dating apps do traditional dating apps to protect users.”
However, some men – and women – have challenged these types of groups claiming that they put men at risk of privacy and defamation attack.
Earlier this year, a person named Nikco D’Ambrosio took legal action against Facebook owner Meta because “Are we dating the same man” told about several statements about him in a chat group called “Are we dating the same man”.
The lawsuit was thrown by a federal judge in Illinois.
