Facebook CEO Vows to Provide Special Tool to Clear Browsing History

Facebook will offer its users a number of new tools to control the use of their personal data on the network, including the ability to clear the history of data tied to a specific account, the company's CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Tuesday during his speech at the European Parliament.

"In addition to GDPR [General Data Protection Regulation] we are also working to give people important new controls… We just announced that we are building and will soon launch the Clear History feature that allows you to clear all basic browsing data," Zuckerberg said.

The European Parliament invited Zuckerberg to Brussels to personally answer lawmakers' questions about the investigation into the leaks of EU citizens' personal data, which was launched in connection with the scandal around the activities of UK marketing company Cambridge Analytica.

EU parliamentarians wanted to know whether Facebook user data was used during the 2016 US presidential election and the Brexit referendum.

On May 25, the EU Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC on the protection of personal data will be replaced by the GDPR. In line with the new regulations, users will have the right to completely delete personal information, while the use of personal data of individuals under 16 years will require permission of their parents or guardians.

Breaches of the GDPR may result in a fine amounting to up to 4 percent of a company's turnover.