Enlarge / Roughly 14 million people per year may have to hand over their social-media “identifiers” before entering the United States, should the Trump administration get its way. (credit: TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/Getty Images)
Want to visit the United States in a non-immigrant capacity? Should the State Department get its way, your application to enter the country may soon hinge on coughing up five years of your online history.
The Trump administration’s proposal, published at the Federal Register on Friday, would expand this request, which is currently required to apply for an immigrant visa. Friday’s proposal could be enacted after a 60-day public-comment period pending passage by the Office of Management and Budget. Alternatively, the State Department could modify the proposal and start another comment period. But should this current iteration go into effect, an estimated 14 million non-immigrant visa applicants per year would be asked to list any “identifiers” used on a variety of popular social media sites. Those applicants will additionally be required to disclose identifiers they have used during that timespan on sites that aren’t on the State Department’s default list.
The proposal also expands the State Department’s requests from applicants. These individuals would also be asked to supply past phone numbers, email addresses, passport numbers, and records of international travel.
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