Tea App Breach Exposes 72,000 Selfies, ID Photos and Other User Images
TEA, a meeting of meetings for the safety of women who reached the top of the free IOS App Store ads this week, has been the subject of a major security violation. The company confirmed on Friday that it had “identified authorized access to one of our systems” which exhibited thousands of user images.
According to the preliminary results of tea, the violation made it possible to access approximately 72,000 images, divided into two groups: 13,000 images of selfies and an identification of photos that people had submitted during the account verification and 59,000 images which were publicly visible in the application from publications, comments and direct messages.
These images were in an “inherited data system” which contained information more than two years ago, the company said in a press release. “Currently, there is no evidence suggesting that current or additional user data have been affected.”
Earlier Friday, publications on Reddit and 404 Media reported that faces and identifiers for tea application users had been published on the Babilla of anonymous online 4chan message.
Tea demands that users check their identities with selfies or identifiers, which is why driving licenses and photos of people’s faces are in disclosed data.
The premise of tea is to provide women with a space to point out the negative interactions they had during the meeting of men in the dating pool, allegedly ensuring the safety of other women. The application struck the first place of the Apple American App Store this week, attracting international attention and triggering a debate on the question of whether the application violates men’s privacy. If the reports of a violation prove to be true, it will also play in the broadcast debate on the question of whether online identity and age verification represent a risk of inherent security for Internet users.
In the confidentiality section of his website, tea declares: “Tea dating advice takes reasonable security measures to protect your personal information to avoid losses, abuse, unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration and destruction. Please know, however, that in spite of our efforts, no security measure is impenetrable.”
TEA said it launched a complete investigation to assess the scope and impact of the violation.
