Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Twitter will now let you transfer data between their services

Some of the tech giants have partnered up to allow easier information sharing between their platforms.

The news: In news originating from the Data Transfer Project, which was founded last year, large sites including Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Instagram, Flickr, and Twitter will now be able to use information already uploaded on one service to populate the same user’s account on another platform. The new tools can grab and translate information from the different services’ proprietary APIs (aka tools or protocols within the software).

What it means for you: Instead of uploading photos, events, contacts, or other personal information to a slew of websites, you will now be able to automatically access it on other platforms—no reuploading required. So if you’ve uploaded your favorite picture to Instagram, you can easily share it to your Flickr account, too.

Why do this? While it is about making things easier for users, it’s also related to GDPR compliance. The new EU regulation requires companies to allow users to easily transport their data between different services.

What’s next: The project is looking for additional partners and is working to streamline the data transfer process even further.