Facebook adds search functionality to 'Access Your Information' tool

The sub-categories make it much easier to navigate to the data type the user is interested in. Additionally, the redesigned tool brings a new search functionality to find data categories simply by searching for them. For instance, typing “location” on search will generate some suggestions regarding the location history.

Facebook has revamped its 'Access Your Information' tool to make it more usable and transparent. The tool was introduced in 2018 for people to access and manage their information such as posts, reactions, comments, and things on the social network.

"It's important to us to keep making it easier for people to understand and access their data on Facebook, so we'll keep updating our tools whenever we can to make sure that people can continue to access their data in meaningful ways," Facebook said.

Instead of two broad categories - Your Information and Information About You, the revamped tool now has eight categories of data, each of which breaks down further into subcategories. The new categories include:

• Your Activity Across Facebook
• Friends and Followers
• Preferences
• Personal Information
• Logged Information
• Ads Information
• Apps and Websites Off of Facebook
• Security and Login Information

The sub-categories make it much easier to navigate to the data type the user is interested in. Additionally, the redesigned tool brings a new search functionality to find data categories simply by searching for them. For instance, typing "location" on search will generate some suggestions regarding the location history.

"Now that we've had some time to learn about how people use it, we've reorganized and given it a new coat of paint, so that it's even more usable and transparent. We want to make sure that your information on Facebook is useful, easy to understand and easy to find," the social networking giant said.

With this update, Facebook is also adding information about how users' data may be used to personalize their experience on the platform. For instance, you might see that your primary location was one of the multiple signals that informed a recent ad you saw for a food delivery app.

Facebook says the changes in the 'Access Your Information' were made in response to research that showed how people interacted with the tool already. The revamped tool is now available on iOS and Android and will soon be available on other platforms too.