Essentially the most downloaded free app on Apple’s App Retailer at present is not ChatGPT, Threads or Google. It is Tea, a courting recommendation app that lets ladies overview males they’ve gone out with, in addition to warn different single ladies about dates they declare went awry.

Tea Courting Recommendation, an app for serving to ladies vet their dates, can also be a high app on the Google Play Retailer, the place it has been downloaded greater than 100,000 occasions. 

The app’s maker says it provides a measure of safety for customers that conventional courting apps do not. Tea does not match singles with potential dates; slightly, it is a spot for girls to share details about males they’ve dated. Tea lets customers run background checks on potential matches, test to see if they’ve prison information or seem on intercourse offender databases, and extra, all via the app. 

The app additionally ensures that customers who enroll are ladies by requesting that they submit a selfie for verification. That is aimed toward defending customers towards so-called catfishing schemes, during which individuals create faux on-line personas, typically as a part of a scheme to defraud others.

Tea declined to remark for this text. 

Security in numbers

To make sure, many of the options that Tea provides exist already. Social media boards, such because the Fb group referred to as “Are we courting the identical man?,” additionally let ladies evaluate notes about their dates in a neighborhood discussion board. The principle distinction: scale. Tea has greater than 1.6 million customers, in line with its web site.

“What this app appears to be doing is centralizing all that into one very massive neighborhood,” Doug Zytko, an affiliate professor on the College of Michigan-Flint who researches human-computer interactions for security, advised CBS MoneyWatch. 

Zytko, who has extensively studied courting app designs, mentioned that security “has not been prioritized” for many such instruments out there, which he mentioned helps clarify why Tea has struck a chord with ladies. 

“The courting app security options that exist are largely reactive in nature. They are not about retaining individuals secure, however are punitive actions one can take after one thing has occurred,” he added. 

Zytko additionally acknowledged the considerations of some males, voiced on boards like Reddit, that Tea customers may share false details about them.

“If inaccurate details about a person is being shared, that damages his courting prospects and social fame,” Zytko mentioned. “That is scary, but it surely’s not a motive to low cost the app.”

One other potential threat is one widespread to all social media platform, and digital info extra broadly. Tea confirmed to CBS Information that its app was hacked Friday morning, with unhealthy actors accessing an information storage system containing info, together with selfies, that members had uploaded previous to February 2024. 

Moreover, hackers accessed virtually 60,000 photos from posts, plus feedback and direct messages, the corporate mentioned.

“Tea has engaged third-party cybersecurity consultants and are working across the clock to safe its programs,” the corporate mentioned in an announcement, noting that it’s investigating the incident. “Right now, there isn’t a proof to counsel that further consumer information was affected.”