Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Facebook has been forced to postpone the launch of its dating service in Europe after a regulator in Ireland raised data protection concerns, The Wall Street Journal reports. Under EU rules, companies have to conduct a data processing impact assessment (DPIA) before launching a product or service that could impact their customers’ data. Ireland’s Data Protection Commission said that Facebook had intended to launch Facebook Dating today, the day before Valentine’s Day, but said that it was “very concerned” to have only learned about it yesterday on February 12th.
Facebook Dating launched in the US last year and is currently available in 20 countries around the world. The service draws upon data in your existing Facebook account to let you…