A dating safety app that allows women to do background checks on men and anonymously share "red flag" behaviour has been hacked, exposing thousands of members' images, posts and comments.

Tea Dating Advice, a US-based women-only app with 1.6 million users, said there had been "unauthorised access" to 72,000 images submitted by women.

Some included images of women holding photo identification for verification purposes, which Tea's own privacy policy promises are "deleted immediately" after authentication.

Tea said the breach affected members who signed up before February 2024. It added it had "acted fast" and was "working with some of the most trusted cybersecurity experts".

The app has recently experienced a surge in popularity - as well as criticism from some who claim it is anti-men.

Tea lets women check whether potential partners are married or registered sex offenders as well as run reverse image searches to protect against "catfishing", where people use fake online identities.

But one of the most controversial aspects of Tea is that it allows women to share information on men they have dated to "avoid red flags" but also highlight those with "green flag" qualities.

The company said the breached photos "can in no way be linked to posts within Tea".

The firm blocks screenshots so that posts are not shared outside the app.

But on Friday it also admitted that an additional 59,000 images from the app showing posts, comments and direct messages from over two years ago were accessed.

Tea said: "We're taking every step to protect this community - now and always."

BBC News has contacted Tea for comment.

The company was set up in November 2022 by Sean Cook, a software engineer who said he was inspired to create Tea after witnessing his mother's online dating experiences.

He told Medium in May: "I was shocked by how easy it was for catfish, scammers and criminals to take advantage of women on dating apps and how little traditional dating apps do to protect users."

However, some men - and women - have challenged these types of groups claiming that they put men at risk of invasion of privacy and defamation.

Earlier this year, an individual named Nikko D'Ambrosio took legal action against Facebook's owner Meta, because of a number of statements made about him in a chat group called "Are We Dating the Same Guy".

The lawsuit was thrown out by a federal judge in Illinois.