Tea, a dating app created with women’s safety in mind, set itself apart by offering something traditional dating apps don’t. Instead of matching singles with potential dates, Tea allows women to share information about men they’ve dated by posting Yelp-style reviews. And its popularity was skyrocketing, leading to it being the most downloaded free app on Apple’s U.S. App Store and one of the top apps in the Google Play Store.
So, Tea is really more of a dating advice app, and it markets itself as a safe place for women to anonymously vet men and warn other women about bad dates they’ve had. It also lets users run background checks on potential matches, check to see if they have criminal records or are in sex offender databases, all through the app. It was created by Sean Cook, a software engineer, who started the company after watching his own mom’s “terrifying” dating experiences, including being catfished and dating guys with criminal records.
While the information shared on Tea is anonymous, the app ensures users are really women by requesting a selfie for verification. And while the app was enjoying its number one spot in the Apple Store, it was hacked on Friday and many of those selfies were leaked. Hackers accessed close to 60-thousand images from posts, along with comments and direct messages, but no email addresses or phone numbers were exposed, and only users who signed up before February 2024 were affected. According to Tea, “all data has been secured” now.
Source: CBS News