Facebook will begin testing Accounts Center this week on Facebook, Instagram and Messenger From Facebook, calling it a way “to control connected experiences that work across our applications.”
Accounts Center is completely optional.
Users can turn connected experiences on and off, including single sign on, which enables people to log into and recover accounts more easily, and cross-posting, which allows them to share the same Stories or posts to Facebook and Instagram.
Later this year, Facebook Pay will be added to the mix, enabling users to enter their payment information once and make secure purchases and donations across Facebook and Instagram.
Product manager Oren Hod said in a Newsroom post that people using Accounts Center are not required to have the same identity across Facebook’s family of apps, but should they choose to do so, they can sync their name and profile photo across the apps.
He added, “We use information across our apps to personalize your experience and show you more relevant content, including ads. Setting up and using Accounts Center won’t change that. We also use information about activity on our apps to improve our services and keep them safe—for example, to help identify and remove accounts that violate our policies, and to keep your accounts secure. To ensure that these new features work seamlessly, we’ll continue to use information across our apps when you set up your Accounts Center. We’ll also use your information to personalize experiences across accounts, like suggested friends and accounts to follow. To learn more about the information Facebook collects and how it’s used, check out our Data Policy and How Ads Work.”
