Messaging has been turned off on the women’s dating safety app Tea, following a hack which has exposed thousands of members’ images, posts and comments.
In a new statement the company said: “As part of our ongoing investigation into the cybersecurity incident involving the Tea App, we have recently learned that some direct messages (DMs) were accessed as part of the initial incident.”
The hack of the app, which allows women to do background checks on men and anonymously share “red flag” behaviour, was revealed over the weekend.
It’s a US-based women-only app with 1.6 million users, who have been told to expect further updates as more information becomes available.
“Our team remains fully engaged in strengthening the Tea App’s security, and we look forward to sharing more about those enhancements soon,” the company said.
Adding: “In the meantime, we are working to identify any users whose personal information was involved and will be offering free identity protection services to those individuals.”
Tea lets women check whether potential partners are married or registered sex offenders as well as run reverse image searches to protect against “catfishing”, where people use fake online identities.
One of the most controversial aspects of Tea is that it allows women to share information on men they have dated to “avoid red flags” but also highlight those with “green flag” qualities.
It previously revealed that hackers had accessed 72,000 images submitted by women.
Some included images of women holding photo identification for verification purposes, which Tea’s own privacy policy promises are “deleted immediately” after authentication.
Tea said the breach affected members who signed up before February 2024.
The app has recently experienced a surge in popularity – as well as criticism from some who claim it is anti-men.