Viral dating-safety app Tea reportedly sued for multiple millions in a class-action lawsuit following data breach 

In a new twist of events, Tea, the viral dating advice app for women, is now at the centre of 10 class-action lawsuits in both federal and state courts, Dexerto has reported.

10 women have sued the dating app, which was touted as exceptionally safe for all females and allowed them to share information relating to men they were dating or had dated. The move comes on the heels of a data breach, which left the identities of thousands, including 13,000 selfies, ID photos, and private conversations, exposed online.

NBC News has reported that all of the lawsuits are accusing Tea Dating Advice Inc., which is the parent company of the app, of being "negligent in its data practices and breaching a contract with its users." They also accuse the company of failing to inform them of the breach accurately and on time.

Everything we know about the case against Tea:

The Washington Post has reported that this Tuesday, a U.S. magistrate in San Francisco amalgamated five of the federal class-action lawsuits. These suits could culminate in the company being forced to pay tens of millions of dollars in restitution to the plaintiffs, NBC News has reported.

The Tea app was founded in 2023, and it claims to allow its users to execute criminal background checks on all potential dates. It also has a built-in reverse image search engine for photos and phone numbers. Furthermore, it allows its users to rate their dates with green and red flags.

Griselda Reyes, one of the plaintiffs, claims to have submitted her photograph while signing up for the app, which was later allegedly accessed during the data breach.

"I don't think that this organization intended to violate people's rights," Scott Cole, the lead attorney on Reyes' case, told BI. "I think they were just sloppy." "They went viral very, very recently, and their numbers just went through the roof as a result of that," Cole added.

A spokesperson for the app previously told Business Insider:

"We are working to identify any users whose personal information was involved and will be offering free identity protection services to those individuals."

Another lawsuit was brought forth by a woman going by the pseudonym Jane Doe. She claims to have:

"joined Tea for one simple reason: she wanted to anonymously warn other women in her Northern California community about a man who sexually assaulted at least two other women." Her suit continues, "The app promised her that anonymity. It promised her safety. It promised to delete her verification data. Tea broke every one of those promises."

Another lawsuit names X and 4chan as defendants, alleging that some of the leaked data circulated on these platforms:

"In an age where data breaches have become commonplace, this case stands out for the particular cruelty of its impact: a safety app that made its users less safe, an anonymity platform that exposed identities, social media platforms that weaponized stolen data, and a tool meant to protect women that instead delivered their personal information to those who would do them harm," the second suit says, per the outlet.

Cole told Business Insider that he was working with the firms of other attorneys, including some who have yet to file their lawsuits, in a bid to combine all cases.

"As part of our ongoing investigation into the cybersecurity incident involving the Tea App, we learned that some direct messages (DMs) were accessed as part of the initial incident," a representative for the company previously told NPR. "Out of an abundance of caution, we have taken the affected system offline. At this time, we have found no evidence of access to other parts of our environment."

The company claimed that only users who had signed up before February 2024 had been impacted. The company boasted over 6.2 million female users, NPR has reported. CBC has reported that the app was expected to launch in Canada this Friday, August 8. However, the launch date has now been pushed to February 2026.

Stay tuned to Soap Central for more.

×

Was this article helpful?

Thank You for feedback