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Security and Privacy Perceptions of Pakistani Facebook Matrimony Group Users

Mah Jan Dorazahi ; Deepthi Mungara ; Yasemin Acar ; Harshini Sri Ramulu (2025) — Proceedings of the 2025 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS ’25), 1949–1963

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DOI: 10.1145/3719027.3765221 (opens in a new tab)

Country:   Pakistan
Tags:   Facebook Matrimony Groups, Gendered Online Harms, Identity Theft, Online Matchmaking, Pakistan, Privacy, Profile Verification, Romance Scams
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Synopsis

            
The publication investigates how Pakistani Facebook matrimony group users perceive and manage security, privacy, and trust as they search for long-term partners in a culturally sensitive online space. The authors conducted 23 semi-structured interviews with users to explore what information people disclose on profiles, how they evaluate risks and authenticity, and what roles platform design and group administrators play in safety. The study frames dating and matchmaking in Pakistan as historically offline, family-influenced practices that have migrated to online groups, where cultural norms shape disclosure and protection strategies. The findings indicate elevated privacy concerns and cautious self-disclosure. Participants often share limited personal information and rely on progressive disclosure, cross-platform verification, and private messaging to mitigate risks such as identity theft, scams, doxxing, and social judgment. Many view detailed profiles as more authentic but fear misuse of pictures and contact details. The research identifies factors that influence trust and mistrust, including profile completeness, visible family involvement, perceived sincerity of intent, and indicators of wealth or material display. Admins and platform policies are seen as crucial for safety, yet participants report limitations in verifying authenticity and moderating content given large group sizes. The authors discuss implications and recommendations, including stronger platform-level verification, clearer safety guidelines, content controls (such as restricting screenshots and enabling anonymous but traceable communication), and more robust identity verification processes. They also call for culturally appropriate solutions that balance autonomy, family involvement, and protection against online harms. The study notes limitations related to the scope of interviews and the contextual nature of trust in these specific social-media matchmaking settings.

          

        
                  

            
Identified Gaps

            
Security, privacy, and trust concerns in Facebook matrimony groups are understudied. The paper identifies a lack of safety advice tailored to these users and insufficient mechanisms to distinguish legitimate anonymous users from scammers. It also identifies policy gaps: current Pakistani laws lack provisions specific to online matrimonial groups, and reporting and enforcement procedures are unclear.

          

        
                  

            
Methods

            
The authors conducted 23 semi-structured interviews with Pakistani Facebook matrimony-group users, including people who posted for themselves or others and group administrators. Interviews were conducted in English, Urdu, or both, then de-identified and analyzed through iterative qualitative open coding. Two researchers independently coded subsets of transcripts, refined a codebook, reached kappa greater than 0.82, and organized codes using an affinity diagram.

          

        
                  

            
Limitations

            
The study focuses exclusively on Facebook, limiting transferability to matrimonial websites and apps. Qualitative findings may be affected by self-censorship, observer bias, recall bias, and social-desirability bias, particularly for seven participants recruited through personal contacts. The sample was small, group selection was not systematic, and recruitment was limited to private groups and Pakistani-origin personal connections; results may not generalize to all Pakistani users or other cultural contexts.

          

        
                  

            
Future Work

            
Evaluate identity-verification badges and document-based confirmation for their effects on engagement and disclosure. Test privacy features such as face blurring, watermarking, restricted screenshots/downloads, and flexible anonymity options. Examine Facebook and other matrimonial platforms' mitigation, reporting, and support policies, including across cultural contexts.

          

              

    
    

        
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