Facebook on Monday (Aug. 9) announced several updates to its Transfer Your Information (TYI) data portability tool that will make it easier for users to transfer a copy of their data from the social media platform to other services, including Photobucket, Google Calendar and the new Facebook Events.
According to the announcement, Facebook’s updates will provide "a completely rebuilt experience that’s simpler and more intuitive," enabling users to easily determine where they can export their data and which data types can be exported. It will also offer "greater transparency around the status of each transfer, including making it easier to retry certain transfers."
Additionally, the enhancements will give users the ability to run multiple data transfers at once, when exporting to the same destination. It will also include filters to make it easy to select only specific pieces of data to transfer.
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Facebook said in the announcement that it plans to continue providing users with "secure data portability features they can trust,” and that it is “working with developers to expand the selection of data types and destinations we support.”
The company also called for more government regulations to clarify how data must be protected both during and after it is transferred.
“In the meantime, we’ll keep contributing to the open-source Data Transfer Project, supporting innovation in data portability across the industry and pushing the technology forward,” the company said in its announcement of the TYI updates.
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Last year, Facebook advocated for the ACCESS Act, a law that simplifies the process of moving videos and pictures to a competing site.
Under the ACCESS Act, online platforms with a certain number of users and annual sales deemed by the Department of Justice (DOJ) or the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to be “covered platforms” are required to maintain their interfaces in a manner that is interoperable with competing businesses and enables user data to be portable.
Facebook first let American and Canadian users move their videos and pictures to Google Photos in April 2020.
