Google, Microsoft, Twitter, and Facebook team up for Data Transfer Project

Marvel’s Infinity War might well have been ‘the most ambitious crossover in history’ but there’s a new crossover that might just beat it. In a blog post Google has revealed that it’s working with Microsoft, Facebook, and Twitter on something called ‘Data Transfer Project’.

The Data Transfer Project is, according to Google, “an open source initiative dedicated to developing tools that will enable consumers to transfer their data directly from one service to another, without needing to download and re-upload it.” Essentially, the product is about making data more portable for users. For anyone that has ever tried to move data from one source to another, that could save some massive headaches.

Standardizing and securing data with the Data Transfer Project

The tools being developed by Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Twitter, should be able to transform a proprietary API into a standardized format. Google explains that “this makes it possible to transfer data between any two providers using existing industry-standard infrastructure and authorization mechanisms, such as OAuth.” Tools for adapting data from 7 different services and 5 different data formats have already been developed.

With trust and security being two key issues for consumers in terms of tech, Google was also to keen to point out how the Data Transfer Project is fully committed to data security:

“Services must first agree to allow data transfer between them, and then they will require that individuals authenticate each account independently. All credentials and user data will be encrypted both in transit and at rest. The protocol uses a form of perfect forward secrecy where a new unique key is generated for each transfer. Additionally, the framework allows partners to support any authorization mechanism they choose. This enables partners to leverage their existing security infrastructure when authorizing accounts.”

Google urges the developer community to get involved. You can find the source code for the project here and learn more about the history of the project in white paper here.

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