Tea, an international application for women, which functions as a yelp platform, where women can anonymously share information about meetings with men, was the target of a large cyber attack. Hackers have obtained access to 72,000 user images, including selfies and official identification documents, reports Reuters.
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A company spokesman confirmed for Reuters that he was detected “unauthorized access to our systems”, and among the files exhibited there are 13,000 verification photos (selfies and identity documents), as well as 59,000 images from posts, comments and direct messages.
“We have hired external experts in cyber security and we work non-stop to secure our systems.”the representatives of the TEA transmitted, adding that there were no compromise emails or phone numbers, and the incident only affects the users that were registered before February 2024.
The breach was first reported by the 404 Media on Friday morning.
Tea is an application with a unique concept: after a rigorous verification process, women can publish anonymous reviews about the men they had, in a Yelp similar format. The platform assumes a digital protection role, operating under the motto: “Women should never compromise their safety when they meet someone.”
Despite the security incident, the application remains extremely popular globally. According to a recent post on Instagram, over two million people have requested to join the platform only in recent days.
To create an account, users must send selfies, which, according to the company, are deleted immediately after the review process is completed.
Although the TEA application does not officially operate in Romania, the security breach brings into question a global dating applications, one that manifests itself in the Romanian space. According to a report published in June, over 199,000 accounts belonging to users in Romania were compromised only in the first half of 2025, many of them associated with socializing and dating applications.
No Dating Application guarantees total protection
In parallel, the phenomenon of romantic scams (“romance”) is increasing: users cheated by unknown persons who earn their confidence and then ask them for money or sensitive personal data.
Tinder, one of the most used dating applications in Romania, registered in the first quarter of 2025 about 92,000 active users on Android, according to Sensor Tower data. The platform has recently started testing a function of filtering preferences by height for premium subscribers and develops new facial verification methods, but they are only available in certain regions for now.
However, security specialists point out that none of the dating applications can guarantee total protection, and users remain vulnerable to fraud, identity theft and data breaches, especially if they offer personal content outside the platform.
