Tea App Breach Affects Pre-February 2024 Users

The Tea app, designed for women to anonymously discuss and vet men, experienced a data breach exposing 72,000 images, including 13,000 selfies and photo IDs submitted for verification. The breach, discovered after users on 4Chan accessed and shared the data, affected only users who signed up before February 2024. The compromised data originated from a legacy database maintained for law enforcement compliance related to cyberbullying prevention. Tea's founder, Sean Cook, stated that no email addresses or phone numbers were accessed. The company has engaged third-party cybersecurity experts, is cooperating with authorities, and is working to further secure its systems. The incident has heightened privacy concerns and controversy regarding the app's practices and purpose.