Last week, Facebook announced that it had launched a new tool called Off-Facebook Activity that allows individuals to see a summary of their user activity information as provided to the platform by apps and third-party websites.

The kicker is that users can then choose to clear that information from their account, a move that echoes the EU's General Data Protection Regulation's (GDPR) right to access and right to be forgotten mandates.

"We expect this could have some impact on our business, but we believe giving people control over their data is more important," read the post by Facebook's chief privacy officer Erin Egan and director of product management David Baser.

It's also important to GDPR regulators, and while Facebook has announced its intentions to release Off-Facebook Activity elsewhere in the coming months—a U.S. release was temporarily enjoined by a Texas judge last week—the fact that the tool is already available in EU countries such as Ireland and Spain may not be a coincidence.

According to Elizabeth Harding, a shareholder at Polsinelli, Ireland alone is currently in the midst of at least eight different GDPR investigations involving the social media platform.

"What's interesting is the countries that [Off-Facebook Activity] is being rolled out in, because it's not being rolled out globally right now. … The Ireland piece, I do wonder if that's connected to the investigations in Ireland that are ongoing, if at least one of those investigations is addressing Article 14," Harding said.

Article 14 of the GDPR stipulates that entities receiving personal data from a third party have an obligation to notify individuals, tell them what the information is being used for and give them the opportunity to opt out—which sounds a lot like the general function of Off-Facebook Activity.

So is making that tool available to users enough to curry the favor of GDPR regulators in Ireland or abroad? Yes and no. Harding said while taking steps in the right direction won't get an entity off the hook for incidents of non-compliance, it might "go down better" than just ignoring the issue.

"I think that regulators are very keen to say, 'Look, we've got to figure out [and] partner up to try and understand to be more transparent on some of this," Harding said.

However, as new privacy-centric laws such as the California Consumer Protection Act continue to spring up in the U.S. and other countries, there could be broader aim at play than complying with the GDPR or appeasing regulators after the fact.

Paige Boshell, a managing member at Privacy Counsel, theorized that more tools echoing the functions of Off-Facebook Activity might continue to appear as entities attempt to head off the encroachment of more GDPR-like regulations.

"It's this concept of going above and beyond what they are required to do," Boshell said. "They could argue legislation requiring certain types of sensitive restrictions like the right to be forgotten might not be necessary [in the U.S.]"

However, there's also a chance that there are other, more practical considerations standing in the way of potential U.S. legislation inspired by the GDPR's Article 14.

While a company the size of Facebook may have the infrastructure to support both the identification and deletion of the applicable data involved, the same can't necessarily be said for others in the tech space.

" I think that we will probably see some large tech companies that can readily make that information available," Boshell said. "But for a lot smaller and medium-sized companies, they probably don't have the infrastructure in place to do that, to make that offer."