The United States has proposed a sweeping new rule that would require all visitors – including those from visa-free countries such as the UK, Australia, Japan, Germany, France and others – to submit five years of their social media history before entering the country.

The plan, announced by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), aims to tighten security and improve identity checks.

Critics warn it risks privacy violations, could harm tourism, and might chill free expression worldwide. The proposal is open for a 60-day public comment period before potential implementation.

New Digital Screening Rules Target Visa-Free Travellers

The U.S. government has signalled a significant shift in its travel vetting system with a draft regulation that would require millions of foreign visitors to share details of their online lives.

Under the proposal, travellers from the 42 countries currently eligible for the Visa Waiver Program (VWP) would have to provide a comprehensive record of social media identifiers dating back five years.

These details would be submitted as part of the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA), which travellers must complete before boarding flights to the U.S.

The current ESTA process requires basic biographical information, passport details, and responses to standard security questions. Social media disclosure, although previously encouraged, remained optional.

The new rule would make it mandatory, aligning visa-free travellers with the screening already imposed on student, work, and immigrant visa applicants since 2019.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection argued the rule is necessary to “keep pace with evolving threats” and ensure all travellers are evaluated “with consistent, high-value data.” Officials say social media accounts can reveal identity inconsistencies, extremist affiliations, or potential criminal patterns that may not surface through traditional checks.

What Information the US Wants – And Why Critics Are Concerned

Beyond social media identifiers, the proposal outlines additional expanded data requirements. Visitors may be required to provide:

• Phone numbers used in the past five years
• Email addresses from the past ten years
• Family-member details, including names, birth dates and home addresses
• Enhanced biometric data, such as facial recognition, fingerprints, iris scans or DNA profiles, when technologically feasible
• A mandatory submission through a new mobile app, replacing the existing ESTA website

Critics argue these measures represent one of the broadest digital data collection efforts ever targeted at tourists by a democratic nation. Privacy advocates say the language is vague, offering no clarity on how the data will be stored, who can access it, or how long it will remain in government archives.

Immigration lawyers warn the requirement could lead to misinterpretation or mischaracterisation of innocent online behaviour, particularly in cases where humour, satire, political criticism or cultural expressions are poorly understood by screening officers.

Civil liberties groups also fear the rule could disproportionately affect people from communities or professions where pseudonyms, shared accounts, or privacy measures are common.

Additionally, travel experts say the plan risks hurting tourism at a critical moment. With the 2026 FIFA World Cup approaching – expected to draw millions of visitors to the U.S., Mexico and Canada – the new rules may discourage spontaneous or leisure travel, especially among young travellers wary of government access to their digital footprints.

Context Behind the Push for Expanded Digital Vetting

The proposal is part of a broader shift in U.S. border security and immigration policy that began in the mid-2010s and intensified after a series of global terror incidents. Over the past decade, the U.S. has increasingly turned to digital identity verification, often relying on social media history, metadata analysis and machine learning tools to evaluate travellers’ risk profiles.

In 2019, the State Department mandated social media disclosure for all visa applicants. According to U.S. officials, the measure has already been used to flag inconsistencies in identities and detect potentially harmful activities. However, the policy also led to widespread delays and appointment cancellations, especially in countries with high student and work visa demand, including India.

More recently, industry reports suggested that enhanced digital vetting has contributed to H-1B interview backlogs, with applicants facing unexpected requests to make their personal social media content publicly accessible.

These developments have raised long-standing concerns among privacy advocates about the scope of U.S. digital surveillance and the transparency of its vetting algorithms.

The new ESTA rule, however, marks the first time such extensive digital screening would apply to short-term tourists, many of whom stay in the country for only a few days or weeks. Critics argue the measure represents an escalation of routine travel screening into the realm of mass digital monitoring.

The Logical Indian’s Perspective

While national security is undeniably important, any policy that collects such broad and sensitive personal information must be approached with caution, transparency and empathy. Requiring every visitor – even from long-standing partner nations – to surrender years of social media history risks crossing lines that protect privacy, dignity and freedom of expression.

Social media identities are complex, nuanced reflections of personal lives, often shared across family members, communities or interest groups. Using them as rigid tools of security assessment may unfairly penalise travellers for harmless content or cultural differences.

The Logical Indian believes that security should not come at the cost of trust and openness. Policies that treat all visitors as potential risks can weaken international goodwill, discourage cultural exchange and shift global travel norms towards surveillance rather than cooperation.

A more balanced, intelligence-driven approach – focusing on credible warning signs rather than universal monitoring – would better uphold both safety and civil liberties.

As the U.S. considers this proposal, we must reflect on what kind of world we want to build: one driven by fear and scrutiny, or one guided by understanding, dialogue and shared humanity.