If you are planning to obtain a visa to the United States of America, keep in mind that from now on you will probably have to submit your phone number, email and social media history of the five previous years. That’s because the US State Department is planning to start requiring these details from the applicants among other documents and information.
According to a notice posted by the Federal Register, the Department is revising the collection to request information on applicants’ social media platforms used during the five years preceding the date of application.
“The platforms listed may be updated by the Department by adding or removing platforms. Additional platforms will be added only if collection is consistent with the uses described in the Supporting Statement and after the Office of Management and Budget approval,” it is noted.
This measure comes as a result of the ‘extreme vetting’ that the US State Departments wants to start applying, which has also been one of the biggest electoral promises of President Trump as a way to combat terrorism. Among the social media platforms in the proposal are also the US-based entities such as Instagram, LinkedIn, Reddit and YouTube.
However, the department plans to seek public opinion on this new requirement before submitting the proposal for approval, within a 60-day period. The Department will accept comments from the public up to May 29, 2018.
Actually, this requirement started applying in 2016 to only some specific categories of travelers during the Obama presidency, after the shootings in 2015 in San Bernardino, California, that left 14 people dead. It is estimated that since then, around 65 thousand people per year are placed in these categories, which includes travelers that have previously traveled to areas controlled by terrorist organizations.
If approved, based on the number of applications the US receives annually, this proposal would affect around 15 million people per year, both immigrant and nonimmigrant visa applicants. Exempt from this requirement may be only certain state officials and diplomats.
Experts believe that this is just another way to control free speech, by making social media users think a lot more before posting stuff on the internet. On the other side, while the number of visitors to the US has slightly dropped since Trump took office, which decrease some refer to as the Trump Slump, it is estimated that such measures will affect a further decrease in the number of visitors.
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