The Ministry Foreign of USA will ask all those wishing to consider their visa for details of their social media accounts.
Please note that the ministry wants to ask not only recent social networking accounts but all those who have used it for the past five years, as well as telephone numbers, e-mail addresses and all international travel made by stakeholders during this period.
If the bill is adopted, it will extend the control regime for every applicant, from immigrants but also simple business travelers or tourists.
The Ministry published his decision on Friday, and the public consultation process before approval will be completed on 29 May of 2018.
The announcement explains that the Foreign Ministry wishes to extend the amount of information it collects by adding a few questions to its Immigrant Visa and Alien Registration application (DS-260).
The online form will have a list of social networking platforms (presumably the most important ones) and will “require the person concerned to provide any identifying information they have used on these platforms during the last five date submission of the application".
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs states that the form "will be submitted electronically through an encrypted link to the competent Department".
Please note that some Russian hackers had managed to penetrate the Foreign Office system, 2014 and 2016, at the Office of the Inspector General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (OIG).
The Foreign Ministry estimates that the revised visa procedure will affect about 710.000 applicants trying to enter the US.
Of course we do not know if the new measures will deter those who want to travel to the US. What is certain is that the United States, stamped by the Foreign Ministry, validates a xenophobic attitude that we tend to see in very authoritarian regimes.
