Calling TeaOnHer’s content 'seemingly illegal,' lawmakers demand info from company

House Republicans want answers from the company behind TeaOnHer about the dating-safety app’s practice of allowing anonymous users to post the names, images and locations of women and minors along with abusive and sexually explicit comments.

Two leaders of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform are investigating the app, which has been under fire since a security flaw came to light in August.

On Tuesday, the Apple App Store reportedly removed TeaOnHer and sister brand Tea for not adhering to Apple’s content moderation and user privacy requirements. TeaOnHer is geared toward male users, while Tea is intended for women. Both encourage users to post details about their experiences with other people.

In a letter to company founder Xavier Lampkin, committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) and Cybersecurity Subcommittee Chairwoman Nancy Mace (R-SC) said they believe TeaOnHer may be violating state and federal laws and demanded documents outlining the app’s practices.

A spokesperson for TeaOnHer did not respond to a request for comment.

In addition to the fact that TeaOnHer encourages anonymous users to post images and identifying information about women and minors, the lawmakers noted that there is no way for those named by the app’s users to remove the “harassing, abusive, defamatory and sexually explicit” comments made about them.

Comer and Mace also focused on TeaOnHer’s  poor cybersecurity practices. In August, TechCrunch found a security vulnerability in TeaOnHer that let anyone access users’ emails addresses, driver’s licenses, selfies and locations.

“If true, the Committee’s concerns extend to the vulnerability of the images and information associated with the women and minors who did not provide consent to have their information uploaded to your application,” the lawmakers wrote, citing the TechCrunch report.

Telling Lampkin that the app contains “seemingly illegal content,” Mace and Comer asked him to provide documents relating to processes and procedure for:

• Consent verification for those whose pictures are posted on the app.
• Handling user-submitted content and photos, including age verification.
• Preventing the women and minors discussed on the platform from accessing it.
• Ensuring that content posted on the app is not defamatory.
• Removing individuals’ photos, information and comments about them from the application, including the number of requests received, by whom, and how the requests were addressed.

Cybersecurity weaknesses also have been found in the Tea app. A July hack of Tea led to the exposure of about 72,000 images, including 13,000 selfies and photo IDs provided by users. Users' IDs were reportedly circulated on the message board 4chan.

Days later a second breach led Tea to disable direct messages.