Facebook has pledged to overhaul the social network’s privacy settings to allow people to easily delete data, amid a swirling privacy row over the information it collects.

The company said it would introduce tools that let users see all the information currently held by the website and download their own copy or destroy it. The feature will also allow users to port information to another social media site if they wish to leave Facebook.

The changes are designed to comply with strict new European privacy laws and were not introduced in response to a user backlash over data following the Cambridge Analytica controversy, Facebook said.

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which comes into force in May, demands that companies give customers much greater control over their data and comes with heavy fines, of up to 4pc of global revenues, if they break the law.

Facebook is likely to face heavy scrutiny when the law comes into effect due to the Cambridge Analytica controversy that has battered its share price. Facebook has been fighting accusations that it failed to protect users’ private information when the election consultancy obtained data from 50m accounts before 2015.