Why it matters: Facebook is launching a new feature that allows users to transfer their media from the social network to another online service. It will be available in Ireland first, before rolling out to everyone else in the first half of 2020.
If you want to transfer your photos and videos from Facebook to another service, it currently involves manually saving everything and re-uploading the content, but the new tool allows everything to be transferred quickly and easily. The first service on offer will be Google Photos, with others following later.
Facebook says the feature is part of the Data Transfer Project, a partnership involving several major data companies, including Facebook, Microsoft, Google, Twitter, and Apple. It aims to make it easier to port data between different online services using an open-source platform.
“At Facebook, we believe that if you share data with one service, you should be able to move it to another. That’s the principle of data portability, which gives people control and choice while also encouraging innovation,” said the company.
Facebook writes that privacy and security are its top priorities, so all the transferred data will be encrypted, and users will be asked to enter their passwords before a transfer begins.
The transfer tool is rolling out today, but only to those in Ireland. It will be refined based on user and stakeholder feedback before being launched worldwide in the first half of next year.
https://www.techspot.com/news/82987-new-facebook-tool-users-easily-transfer-data-google.html
