Facebook announced on Thursday it is rolling out its newest service across the US, a platform for dating. What could go wrong? A lot, it turns out.

The new service, Facebook Dating, can be accessed in the Facebook app but requires users to create a separate dating-specific profile. It then links users with potential matches based on location, indicated preferences, events attended, groups and other factors. Facebook Dating will integrate with Instagram and offer a feature called Secret Crush, which allows users to compile a list of friends they have an interest in, to be matched with if the crush lists them as well.

Facebook has touted new privacy and security features within the dating service, including the ability for users to share plans and location with select friends when going on a date and allowing users to hide dating profiles from friends of friends to avoid disclosing sensitive information like sexual orientation.

However, many are skeptical a company mired by numerous privacy scandals should be entrusted with helping users with the private journey of finding love.

“If you’re trying to avoid dating services that have red flags, you can’t really find one that has more red flags than Facebook,” Jason Kelley, a digital strategist at online privacy nonprofit the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said. “They have a terrible track record of keeping user data safe.”

Social media giant entering the dating world brings up ‘red flags’

If Facebook can’t be trusted with your phone number, can it be trusted with safeguarding the name of your secret crush? Experts say no.

Facebook launched its new service, Facebook Dating, on Thursday. Photograph: Associated Press

The announcement of Facebook Dating comes days after the company admitted to exposing more than 419 million user IDs and phone numbers online, a glitch in June 2018 made private posts of 14 million users public, and another breach in September 2018 compromised the data of 50 million users. In a separate scandal it was revealed in 2018 the company improperly harvested the data of millions of users through a partnership with the campaign firm Cambridge Analytica.

Facebook’s phone number breach underlies a concerning inability to determine whether privacy concerns have been effectively resolved, Kelley said. The numbers exposed were amassed using a tool Facebook disabled in April 2018 after the Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal.

“Facebook says the dating service is secure, but how do we know it won’t realize a few years from now it was not as protected as it thought?” Kelley said. “It gives us pause when things they have changed years ago are still being shown to cause problems in terms of data privacy.”

Concerns of using dating data for advertising

Privacy advocates are concerned about Facebook entering the dating space and gleaning more information about users, given their history of using personal data to target users with advertising about everything from mental health services to depressed people to baby products for pregnant people.

Privacy advocates are concerned about Facebook’s dating service. Photograph: Associated Press

The company may be able to build more sophisticated ad profiles based on what kinds of people users like, whom they match with, and even how dates go, Kelley said.

Facebook says users’ dating profiles will be separate from their Facebook activity and not used for ad targeting. But Facebook’s track record casts doubt on such promises, said Mark Weinstein, a privacy advocate and founder of the social network MeWe.

“After so many years of countless privacy infractions, apologies, fines and pledges to do better, does anyone really believe a promise Facebook makes in regard to data privacy?” he said. “Facebook will use Facebook Dating as a new portal into users’ lives; collecting, targeting and selling dating history, romantic preferences, emotions, sexual interests, fetishes, everything.”

Millions more opened up to online scams

Facebook is entering the online dating space at a time when the internet is more rife with fraud than ever. In 2018, more than 21,000 romance scams were reported to the FTC, up from 8,500 in 2015. People targeted by these scams reported a median loss of $2,600 or a collective loss of $143m in 2018. With an estimated 221 million US users, Facebook could potentially be exposing millions to fraud.

“If a service exists, people are going to find a way to use it for some kind of scam,” Kelley said. “It would be unsurprising, given how much data is available on users, it would be used for scams.”

The social media giant is already taking measures to prevent fraud, making users unable to send links, photos or payments within Facebook Messages to prevent scams.

But with the number of privacy, security and scam concerns, privacy advocates say users are likely better off meeting potential love interests on other apps – or IRL.

“You would have to be pretty desperate with all of its history of privacy scandals to give Facebook any more insight into your life than you already have,” Kelley said.