Hackers Leak 72,000 Photos From Controversial Women-Only App ‘Tea’

Tea — a viral app that allows women to post anonymous reviews about men they’ve dated — has had 72,000 images, including women’s selfies and photo IDs, leaked online by hackers.

Tea, a U.S.-based women-only app with four million users, has quickly become one of the most popular apps in the country — reaching No. 1 on the Apple App Store charts last week.

The Tea app works as a virtual whisper network for women. It lets users upload photos of men they’ve dated and search for them by name.

According to the platform website, Tea was launched “to give women the tools they need to date safely.” It includes AI-powered reverse image search to identify fake profile pictures. When users open the app, they see a feed of men’s photos posted by anonymous accounts with screen names. Users can also run background checks on men, search for criminal histories, and leave comments labeling someone a “red flag” or “green flag” and share other details.

However, on Friday, Tea announced it had a data breach that exposed 72,000 images. The company says this included 13,000 selfies and photo IDs used for account verification and 59,000 images from posts, comments, and direct messages.

Photos from the hack, including women’s selfies and ID cards with personal details, began circulating online on Friday. An anonymous user posted the image database, which reportedly included driver’s licenses, on 4chan, according to 404 Media, the first outlet to report the incident.

A Tea spokesperson says that no emails or phone numbers were exposed and that only users who joined the app before February 2024 were affected. The company says it has hired external cybersecurity experts to deal with the leak.

“We have engaged third-party cybersecurity experts and are working around the clock to secure our systems,” the company writes in a statement. “At this time, we have implemented additional security measures and have fixed the data issue.”

To sign up, Tea requires users to submit selfies for verification, which it says are deleted after review, to confirm they are women. All approved users remain anonymous except for their chosen usernames. The app also blocks screenshots. Tea’s recent rise in popularity has brought criticism from some who argue it puts men at risk of privacy violations and defamation.