Facebook has released recently a new data portability tool that will allow its users to transfer photos they have uploaded on the platform to other platforms or to keep them somewhere in the cloud.
Why is Facebook doing this?
Don’t they want to keep all the information on their users from themselves?
First of all, we should mention that in their official statement about this new data portability tool, they talk about Google photos and the fact that you can transfer your photos there, without giving any other specific names of platforms where you can upload your photos. Isn’t this a little bit weird? Are Facebook and Google becoming partners? I guess we should wait and find out later about this.
For some time now, Facebook allows its users to download their data and Instagram as well. So it was about time you could download your photos from the social network in a more organized way than select each of them and save them to a folder on your computer or laptop and then reupload them on a new platform. Having this new possibility from Facebook can be of help for us.
Let’s say you have uploaded photos on Facebook years ago, before you even knew about the could services that were available and now want to keep them somewhere, in case you would delete your Facebook account.
As for the privacy and security matters, they say that all the information is encrypted and before you download it, you must enter your password.
When will this Data Portability Tool be available?
The tool is still being tested and the first country that will have access to it is Ireland. Facebook listens to the feedback they receive from users that already have access to it and stakeholders that want to make sure they are doing the right move and no data is compromised.
As for the rest of the world, the plan is to be rolled out in the first half of 2020.
See also: Introducing Facebook Viewpoints
