Facebook gives people more control over their data

This year, Facebook has made their privacy settings easier to find and improved the ability to manage your data. That includes the ‘Download Your Information’ feature, which is a way to access a secure copy of the data you’ve shared with Facebook. But using your data from one service when you sign up for another still isn’t as easy it should be.

Therefore, Facebook is participating in the Data Transfer Project, which is a collaboration of organisations, including Google, Microsoft and Twitter. The program is committed to building a common way for people to transfer data into and out of online services.

Moving your data between any two services can be complicated because every service is built differently and uses different types of data that may require unique privacy controls and settings. For example, you might use an app where you share photos publicly, a social networking app where you share updates with friends and a fitness app for tracking your workouts. People increasingly want to be able to move their data among different kinds of services like these, but they expect that the companies that help them do that will also protect their data.

These are the kinds of issues the Data Transfer Project will tackle. The Project is in its early stages, and more such organisations and experts will get involved in the future.