US To Seek Social Media Details From All Visa Applicants (bloomberg.com)

According to Bloomberg, the State Department wants to require all U.S. visa applicants to submit their social media usernames, previous email addresses and phone numbers. From the report: In documents to be published in Friday's Federal Register, the department said it wants the public to comment on the proposed new requirements, which will affect nearly 15 million foreigners who apply for visas to enter the U.S. each year. The new rules would apply to virtually all applicants for immigrant and non-immigrant visas. The department estimates it would affect 710,000 immigrant visa applicants and 14 million non-immigrant visa applicants, including those who want to come to the U.S. for business or education, according to the documents. If the requirements are approved by the Office of Management and Budget, applications for all visa types would list a number of social media platforms and require the applicant to provide any account names they may have had on them over the previous five years. It would also give the applicant the option to volunteer information about social media accounts on platforms not listed in the application. In addition to their social media histories, visa applicants will be asked for five years of previously used telephone numbers, email addresses, international travel and deportation status, as well as whether any family members have been involved in terrorist activities. Only applicants for certain diplomatic and official visa types may be exempted from the requirements, the documents said.

Comments

Enough is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Guess I won't be travelling to the US anymore.

Re:Enough is enough

[Nohbdey]

As an American, that sucks. Forget the hate on this site. You WILL be missed, as will the millions of others who choose not visit this country now that more and more barriers are put in place.

The key number here is 15 million per year

[RightwingNutjob]

That's 41,000 per day, every day. No one is even going to follow up to see if the first alias listed even exists, let alone have time to verify its authenticity. This isn't even security theatre, it's security elevator music.

Re:The key number here is 15 million per year

[Cajun Hell]

It's not security-anything. The purpose is to humiliate all applicants. You don't need to follow up on them.

You can occasionally randomly follow up on what some people didn't include, look for them on whatever website they say they're not on, find them if they lied poorly, and then reject their application. That seems like a pretty great way to make people unhappier, though I'm not saying it's the only viable way to approach it so they shouldn't specify this in the new regs.

Why do you think you take your shoes off at TSA checkpoints? It's to make you acknowledge that you're their bitch, that's why. They don't just want to humiliate you, and you unflinchingly take it; you have to participate in it. I think this social media thing is a reasonable extension of this.

The big question is: why is this limited to Visa applicants? Shouldn't they be doing this to citizens too? Maybe the Visa aspect is just a trial run.