In terms of privacy we very clearly understand our important responsibility as custodians of people's data and the need for us to do better. That is why, since 2014, we have taken significant measures to drastically reduce the amount of data that third party applications can access on Facebook and why we're putting together a much bigger and muscular privacy function within the company. We've also made significant advancements to give people more transparency and control over their data.
We recognize that, while we're doing much more on privacy, we're all better off when there are overarching frameworks to govern the collection and use of data. Such frameworks should protect your right to choose how your information is used, while enabling innovation. They should hold companies such as Facebook accountable by imposing penalties when we make mistakes and should clarify new areas of inquiry, including when data can be used for the public good and how this should be applied to artificial intelligence.
There are already some good models to emulate, including the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation and Canada's Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act. Achieving some degree of harmonization around the world would be desirable and would facilitate economic growth.
We also believe that the principle of data portability is hugely important for consumer choice and for ensuring a dynamic and competitive marketplace for digital services. People should be able to take the data they have put on one service and move it to another service. The question becomes how data portability can be done in a way that is secure and privacy-protective. Data portability can only be meaningful if there are common standards in place, which is why we support a standard data transfer format and the open source data transfer project.
Finally, Facebook is doing its utmost to protect elections on our platform around the world by investing significantly in people, technology and partnerships. We have tripled the number of people working on security matters worldwide from 10,000 to 30,000 people. We have developed cutting-edge AI technology that allows us to detect and remove fake accounts en masse.
Of course, we cannot achieve success working only on our own, so we've partnered with a wide range of organizations. In Canada we are proud to be working with Agence France-Presse on third party fact checking, MediaSmarts on digital literacy and Equal Voice to keep candidates, in particular women candidates, safe online.
Facebook is a strong supporter of regulations promoting the transparency of online political advertising. We think it is important that citizens should be able to see all the political ads that are running online, especially those that are not targeted at them. That is why we support and will comply with Bill C-76, Canada's Elections Modernization Act, which this Parliament passed, and will be engaging in the weeks ahead with Canadian political advertisers, including the federal political parties represented here today, on important changes for political advertising that will come to the platform by the end of June.
Finally, Mr. Chair, if I may, as you will know, Facebook is part of the Canada declaration on electoral integrity online, which sets out 12 commitments that the Government of Canada and certain online platforms agree to undertake together in the lead up to the October federal election. This is a strong expression of the degree to which we are taking our responsibilities seriously in Canada, and we look forward to working in lockstep with officials to guard against foreign interference.
Thank you for the opportunity.
We look forward to taking your questions.