US visa seekers to disclose Social Media identities, E-mail Addresses
According to a State Department plan published Friday, visa seekers — whether visitors or would-be immigrants — will be presented with a list of social media platforms.
Applicants will be required to identify which they use and provide “any identifiers used by applicants for those platforms during the five years preceding the date of application.” “Other questions seek five years of previously used telephone numbers, email addresses, and international travel,” the notice, published in the Federal Register, revealed.
When these new rules were first suggested last
year as part of what US President Donald Trump has called “extreme vetting” of
would-be visitors, civil liberties groups sounded the alarm about privacy.
But officials say they could identify potential
extremists, such as one of the attackers in the December 2015 San Bernadino
shooting — who got a visa despite allegedly advocating “jihad” on social media.
The measures apply both to the DS-260 “Immigrant
Visa and Alien Registration Form” and the DS-160 “Application for Nonimmigrant
Visa.”
In the last fiscal year, 559,536 people applied
for US immigrant visas and 9,681,913 for various forms of visitor visa. Friday’s
announced measures will not touch diplomatic or official travelers.
The announcement begins a 60-day period in which
interested bodies and members of the public will be allowed to submit comments
on the rule changes, which are expected to be approved on May 29.
AFP
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