The United States is planning to require some visitors to provide their social media history from the past five years, according to US President Donald Trump’s administration.
This requirement will apply to visitors who do not need a visa to enter the US.
Here is a closer look at this proposal:
What is the US planning to do?
The proposal was announced on the Federal Register by the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on Wednesday. It will enable officials to collect up to five years of social media history from travellers from certain visa-waiver countries before they can enter the country.
The proposal states that this mandatory social media history disclosure is in line with Executive Order 14161, signed by Trump in January 2025.
That order, titled “Protecting the United States from foreign terrorists and other national security and public safety threats”, required US government agencies to increase their vetting of foreign nationals entering the country.
Who would this affect?
The requirement will apply to travellers using the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) under the US’s Visa Waiver Program.
The Visa Waiver Program permits citizens of 42 countries – including the United Kingdom, Germany, Qatar, Greece, Malta, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Israel and South Korea – to travel to the US for tourism or business purposes for up to 90 days.
At present, the ESTA automatically screens applicants and grants travel approval without requiring an in-person interview at a US embassy or consulate, unlike standard visa applications. Applicants are required to provide a more limited set of information, such as their parents’ names, current email address and details of any past criminal record.
Since 2016, the ESTA has included an optional question asking travellers to disclose their social media information.
How would this work?
Once the proposal comes into effect, visitors will be required to provide CBP with a list of their social media handles or usernames used over the past five years.
The visitors would not have to give CBP their social media log‑in credentials or passwords. They will use this information to review the publicly accessible information on the social media profiles of these visitors.
The new notice also states that travellers will have to provide additional personal information, including all telephone numbers used over the past five years and email addresses used over the previous 10 years.
Authorities also said they plan to add what are described as “high-value data fields” to the ESTA application “when feasible”. These will include metadata from electronically submitted photographs, extensive personal details about applicants’ family members, such as their places of birth and telephone numbers used over the past five years, as well as biometric information, including fingerprints, DNA and iris data.
The announcement did not include information about what the administration will be looking for within social media accounts of visitors or why it is asking for that information.
It is unclear when the proposal will take effect. However, the public now has 60 days to submit comments about the proposed changes before they are finalised, the notice in the Federal Register states.
Why is the US government doing this now?
Travellers from non-Visa Waiver Program countries have been required to disclose their social media handles since 2019. This is an extension of that.
That measure was first introduced by the Trump administration during his first term as president, and was kept in place during President Joe Biden’s tenure.
The CBP and US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) have been seeking to significantly broaden the existing social media disclosure rules for some time.
“USCIS has proposed to extend the social media disclosure requirement to applicants for other immigration benefits as well – up through naturalisation,” Caroline DeCell, a senior staff attorney and legislative adviser at Columbia University’s Knight First Amendment Institute, told Al Jazeera.
In June this year, the State Department also announced that it now requires all F, M and J visa applicants to make their social media profiles public as part of enhanced screening to identify national security threats.
Most social media platforms allow users to either keep their profiles private or make them public.
Private profiles can only be viewed by people actively added as friends – this includes all posts, photos, videos or other content posted by the profile user. Content posted on public profiles can be viewed by anyone.
This relates to student visas for those enrolled in accredited colleges, or in vocational or technical, non‑academic educational programmes. It also covers exchange visitors participating in approved exchange study programmes.
“A US visa is a privilege, not a right,” the State Department statement from June said.
What are the privacy implications of this?
DeCell said that if the CBP proposal is approved, the privacy implications would be “significant” as it will require disclosure not only of social media handles, but also of all phone numbers used in the past five years and email addresses used in the past 10 years, as well as biometric data.
“Even travellers who post publicly on social media typically maintain some expectation of obscurity, if not privacy, online. And those who use pseudonymous social media handles or email addresses would be directly deprived of their online anonymity,” she said.
DeCell added that if the USCIS proposal to seek this information for all immigration visa and citizenship applicants is also approved, besides the CBP proposal for travellers from visa waiver countries, “then nearly every non-US citizen who seeks to enter or remain in the United States would be subject to indefinite social media surveillance by the US government”.
Under the USCIS proposal, US citizens who petition in support of their relatives’ immigration applications would also be subjected to this “surveillance”.
What are the implications for freedom of speech?
The First Amendment to the US Constitution guarantees the freedom of religion, speech, the press and peaceful assembly.
However, DeCell warned that this expanding system will deter free speech online and many foreigners will be put off from travelling to the US, whether for work or leisure.
Source: Aljazeera
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