72,000 women’s photos and locations exposed in nightmare data breach

A viral app designed to help women expose red-flag men has become a red flag itself after a devastating data breach saw tens of thousands of private images leaked.

A once-empowering app designed to protect women from catfishers, criminals and creeps has turned into a privacy nightmare.

Tea Dating Advice, the female-only app that soared to popularity this July thanks to TikTok, was hailed a game-changer in identifying dodgy men and enabling women to “swipe safely.”

The Yelp-style platform grants women access to a forum where they can post anonymous ratings of men they’re seeing and ask other women for “tea” - aka gossip/dirt.

The app is armed with tools to help women steer clear of danger. Picture: tea-dating.com

Think of it like writing a scathing review of that regretful Tinder date you went on with the foot-fetish guy, or simply venting about your ex.

The app is armed with AI-powered features to help you steer clear of danger in the chaos of modern dating: including background checks, reverse image lookups, sex offender registry searches, and the ability to set alerts on men’s names.

The “revolutionary” dating tool had a rapid rise, but an equally fast downfall.

Youth and pop culture magazine Dazed argued that the app’s model teeters on “digital vigilantism”, allowing women to post photos of men without their consent, raising serious privacy questions.

And now those very concerns are front and centre.

Quietly launched in 2023 by tech founder Sean Cook, Tea remained under the radar, only rocketing to number one on Apple’s US App Store at the beginning of July 2025.

Last Friday, the company confirmed it suffered “unauthorised access to an archived data system”, exposing roughly 72,000 user‑submitted images.

13,000 selfies and photo IDs used for verification, plus 59,000 images from posts, comments and direct messages dating back over two years.

Tea’sInstagram statement insisted the breach affected only a “legacy storage system” and that users who signed up after February 2024 were not impacted.

“We’ve acted fast and we’re working with some of the most trusted cybersecurity experts,” the company said.

72,000 user-submitted images were exposed, along with location data - to which men all over the world reacted to. Picture: Supplied

Tea claims it stored those images to comply with cyber-bullying prevention laws. But many ‘Tea Party Girls’ have questioned - if photo IDs were supposed to be deleted after verification, why did thousands remain in an exposed archive?

In 2023, the app reportedly stopped requiring photo IDs for new signups, yet the breached data set still contained thousands of them.

While Tea was celebrating two million new users, an anonymous 4chan user posted a database of photos, including location-tied data and even a map - which sparked heated discussion across X and Facebook. These posts have since been removed.

It’s likely no coincidence that 4chan, infamous for online harassment, was a vocal critic of the app, with some users calling for it to be hacked in the days after it blew up on social media.

Tea claimed to have stored images to comply with cyber-bullying prevention laws. Picture: Instagram @theteapartygirls

Tea is just the latest target in a broader debate about women using tech to stay safe and the backlash that often follows.

Apps and groups aimed at outing cheaters or dangerous men have gained traction on social media, but they’ve also triggered lawsuits, hate campaigns, and arguments about defamation and privacy.

Cook said the app was born out of watching his mother’s “terrifying” experience with online dating.

She was catfished and unknowingly interacted with men who had criminal histories.

But sadly, in trying to fix one safety issue, Cook created another.

Originally published as 72,000 women’s photos and locations exposed in nightmare data breach