A Class Action Lawsuit Has Already Been Filed Against the Viral App “Tea”
Last week, a series of events happened in quick succession: The Yelp-like app Tea — designed to rate and review men under the guise of promoting safety — shot to the top of Apple’s App Store as women tried to anonymously determine whether the men in their lives were “green” or “red.” Then came the backlash, which included a data breach that released thousands of images to verify users. Then came a second breach that compromised millions of private messages sent and received on the app.
In a new development this week, some of the women involved have filed a class-action lawsuit against the app. (Tea representatives told me they were unable to comment on this at this time.)
Class Action Lawsuit Against Tea
Earlier this week, Tea app user Griselda Reyes sued Tea Dating Advice, Inc., alleging negligence, breach of implied contract, breach of implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, and unfair competition. She filed the lawsuit not only on her own behalf, but also on behalf of “all other similarly situated individuals,” accusing Tea of “failing to adequately protect” their personal information.
The complaint states that Tea assured users that images they provided to prove they were women would be removed. Clearly, since thousands of such images were posted and the company issued a statement saying they were two years old, there is a discrepancy between the assurances of removal and the reality of what happened.
According to the complaint, Reyes “spent time dealing with the aftermath” of the data breach, researching its legality and implications, and exploring credit monitoring and theft insurance options. Reyes says she suffered losses including lost time, frustration, inconvenience, and anxiety, as well as “imminent and impending harm caused by the substantially increased risk of fraud, identity theft, and misuse” that resulted from her personal information “falling into the hands of unauthorized third parties/criminals.”
Tea representatives again told me they had no comment at this time. Interestingly, I already received a targeted ad on Instagram last night asking me to file a class action lawsuit if I downloaded the app and was affected by it, so the lawsuit is moving along pretty quickly.
What happened to Thea?
Tea is marketed as a safety tool that can help women run background checks, identify sexual predators, spot cheaters, and stay away from abusers, and to some extent, it is. To another extent, as the name suggests, it is a gossip platform for specific real men, none of whom can access the app to protect themselves or even see if their photo is there. Tea can be used to find safety-sensitive information, but it is also entirely possible to use it to slander a man whose worst crime is not wanting to communicate, not having money, or not sending messages in a timely manner, or, worse, whose crime is irrelevant at all.
It’s understandable why some were outraged by Thea’s rise to fame, and why some virtual vigilantes wanted to leak photos and personal information, even though it’s wrong. An abusive man doesn’t want his handwriting exposed, and an innocent person doesn’t want to be slandered without due process. A curious or cautious woman who feels confident in her anonymity doesn’t want her driver’s license photo to end up in a database. No one wins here.
The first wave of data breaches released thousands of images for inspection, including ID cards and government photos, but Tea was quick to say they were all two years old, none of the newly created accounts were affected, and they were bringing in cybersecurity experts and law enforcement to get to the bottom of what happened.
The second round involved much more recent, and sometimes sensitive, data: private messages sent and received on the app as recently as the previous week. They were technically anonymous, since they weren’t tied to users’ real names, but some contained enough personal information to identify their authors. Tea quickly disabled the private messages feature last Friday in response to the leak, and it remains down, though the rest of the app remains functional.
There is no evidence that these messages were distributed – rather, the leak was discovered by an investigator who leaked the results to the press. The photos of the driver’s licenses from the first leak are a different story: they were distributed on forums and social networks.