“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. Today, we’re releasing a tool that will enable Facebook users to transfer their Facebook photos and videos directly to other services, starting with Google Photos,” Steve Satterfield, Director of Privacy and Public Policy at Facebook announced in a blog post. The new photo transfer tool is a part of an open-source Data transfer project and a collaboration of companies like Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Twitter. The project was launched last year as a service-to-service data portability platform. “The project does this by providing an open-source library that any service can use to run and manage direct transfers on behalf of users. Rather than expecting every company to build its own system from scratch, this open-source framework allows them to share any improvements in the framework as well as adapters and data models,” said Facebook in a blog post. The project aims to develop a common platform for people to transfer their data between online services. “The goal of this project has been to make it easier for services of any size to securely make direct transfers for data portability from one service to another and to make the process simpler for the people who use these services,” the company added. The company says during the initial testing phase the photo transfer tool will be refined based on the feedback it receives from people as well as from their conversations with stakeholders. Users can access the new tool in Facebook settings, under the “Your Facebook information tab”. Before a transfer is initiated, users will be asked to enter their password. Further, all data transferred will be encrypted to ensure privacy and security, says Facebook. The users initially will be able to transfer media files only to Google Photos. However, the company has plans to add support for other cloud sharing platforms shortly. The new photo transfer tool is now available only for users in Ireland. But, it is expected to be rolled out worldwide in the first half of 2020. Recently, Facebook launched a new market research app called Facebook Viewpoints that will pay members of the social network for participating in surveys, research and other tasks.
