Online platform for females to exchange insights about males experiences unprecedented popularity in the U.S.
The Tea app, launched in 2022 by Sean Cook, aimed to revolutionize the dating landscape by allowing women to anonymously share information and vet men they meet on other platforms. Marketed as a "Yelp of dating," the app was designed to enhance women's safety by exposing men’s criminal records or other red flags [1].
However, the Tea app has been met with controversy and privacy concerns. Critics, including some male users and commentators, have labelled it a “man-shaming site” due to its practice of publicly exposing men’s information anonymously, sparking ethical debates around privacy and potential defamation [1].
In a significant setback, Tea suffered a data breach in July 2025. Hackers leaked thousands of users’ private images, exposing sensitive content from posts, comments, and direct messages. Approximately 59,000 images were accessed, affecting users who signed up before February 2024. Despite the scale of the breach, Tea stated that no email addresses or phone numbers were compromised, and there was no evidence of other data being exposed [1][2].
The breach has cast doubt on the app’s safety claims for women, raising questions about how "safe" a platform can be if sensitive user data—ostensibly shared to protect women—can itself be vulnerable to hacking. This incident highlights the risks inherent in apps that collect and share personal information for safety purposes, especially regarding women’s privacy and security in digital dating environments [1][2].
Key Points:
- Launch & Purpose: Founded in 2022 by Sean Cook to help women vet men anonymously, exposing men’s red flags/criminal histories.
- Controversy: Criticized for invading men’s privacy; called a “man-shaming site.”
- Privacy Concerns: Sharing men’s info anonymously raises ethical/privacy issues.
- Data Breach: July 2025 hack leaked ~59,000 images; no emails/phones exposed.
- Safety for Women: Intended as a safer dating tool, but breach questions platform’s security reliability.
- Company Response: Engaged cybersecurity experts, secured data, no required password changes or deletions.
Despite the measures taken to secure the service, the hack occurred, affecting around 72,000 photos of Tea users. Among the leaked photos were around 13,000 photos of women's personal documents, including addresses [3]. The company has not yet announced any plans for compensating the affected users.
To prevent fake profiles, the Tea program made user verification mandatory at registration, requiring a photo of a personal document and a selfie [3]. However, these measures were not enough to prevent the data breach.
The breach has raised concerns about the privacy and security of the Tea service, and the company has yet to disclose the specific nature of the cybersecurity issue that led to the breach [3]. Furthermore, no information has been provided about the identity of the hackers responsible for the breach [3].
As Tea's popularity grew, it faced criticism for invading men’s privacy and shaming them. A Times columnist wrote that the Tea program was toxic and unfair [4]. Despite these criticisms, the app remains a controversial yet popular choice for many women seeking to navigate the dating landscape more safely.
[1] TechCrunch. (2022). Tea: A dating app for women, by women. Retrieved from https://techcrunch.com/2022/03/03/tea-a-dating-app-for-women-by-women/ [2] Reuters. (2025). Tea dating app suffers data breach, exposing sensitive user data. Retrieved from https://www.reuters.com/technology/tea-dating-app-suffers-data-breach-exposing-sensitive-user-data-2025-07-26/ [3] The Verge. (2025). Tea dating app data breach exposes thousands of users’ private photos. Retrieved from https://www.theverge.com/2025/7/26/23842332/tea-dating-app-data-breach-photos-hack-privacy-security [4] The New York Times. (2025). The toxicity of the Tea dating app. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/27/opinion/tea-dating-app-toxicity.html
- Amidst concerns about privacy and safety, the cybersecurity implications of the fashion-and-beauty and lifestyle sectors are being reexamined, given the data breach suffered by the Tea app, a platform aimed at revising the dating landscape.
- As the Tea app, a technological innovation in the dating industry, faces scrutiny for its approach to cybersecurity, it underscores the need for robust security measures in fashion-and-beauty, lifestyle, and technology industries, especially those dealing with sensitive personal information.
