U.S. can ask travelers for Twitter handles, email address
Government request implemented May 23 with no fanfare
Travelers wishSAN FRANCIS CO ing to visit the United States can now be asked for their social media handles and email addresses going back five years, a new U.S. government request that has alarmed privacy advocates but which the Trump administration says could help weed out travelers who intend harm.
Citizens of most countries must apply for visas to travel to the United States, which are granted by the State Department. This generally involves a visit to a local U.S. embassy or consulate and an in-person interview with a consular official.
The supplemental questionnaire will be given only to “a fraction of 1% of the 13 or so million people who apply for a visa to visit the United States each year and is meant for applications for which consular officials feel more information is necessary,” said Will Cox, a spokesman for the State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs. About 85% of those who apply for visas are granted them, he said.
Applicants are not being asked for the passwords to these accounts, and consular officers will not be going into social media and friending people, Cox said. The questionnaire also asked about employment history, siblings, children and spouses, “current or previous” and “living or deceased.”
The State Department asked for the right to collect the information under an emergency request May 3, which was granted May 23 by the Office of Budget and Management. It was implemented with no fanfare May 23, and it wasn’t until Thursday, when Reuters first reported on it, that the existence of the new form became widely known.
Visa applicants might have faced requests for their social media handles in the past, but the practice is now explicit, a change that follows a series of restrictions to travelers entering the U.S. by the Trump administration, some of which have been overturned in court. This latest request is far milder than other attempted changes, such as a ban on travelers from predominantly Muslim countries.
But immigration and privacy attorneys say they worry consular officials will make a rush to judgment — while missing those who intend harm.
“We see this as part of a larger pattern of the federal government scrutinizing the social media of presumably blameless foreigners,” said Adam Schwartz, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital civil rights group.
Visitors to the United States haven’t previously been put on notice that whatever they have said on social media over the past five or more years is going to potentially be used against them.
“They weren’t thinking about what might look suspicious to a consular official,” Schwartz said.
“A lot of people have opinions on what’s been going on in this country, but it doesn’t mean they hate America. If someone said ‘America sucks’ online two years ago, does that mean they can’t get a visa to come here?” said Reaz Jafri, head of the global immigration practice at the law firm of Withers Worldwide in New York.
He is concerned that those who are truly planning to harm the U.S. “aren’t going to give you the email where they’re plotting.”