Passport and Passwords Please: US Floats Social Media Access Requirement for Travellers

Many visitors to the United States may be required to allow access to the last five years of their social media platforms. In a notice posted on the Federal Register, the U.S. government indicated its intention to add “social media as a mandatory data element for an ESTA application.” The requirement would see ESTA applicants provide their social media from the last 5 years.

ESTA is the Electronic System for Travel Authorization. It’s a form that must be filled out by people who wish to visit the U.S. that are citizens of “visa waiver program” (VWP) countries. There are dozens of VWP countries, including Japan, Australia, most of the European Union and the United Kingdom. 

Canada is not a part of the visa waiver program and wouldn’t be subject to social media scrutiny under this rule. Canadian permanent residents travel under the passport of the country of their citizenship. That means some Canadian permanent residents will have to allow access to their social media accounts when applying for the ESTA.

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The new requirement is not yet law. At this point, the U.S. government is seeking comment from the public for the next 60 days. 

The post on the Federal Register also highlights other proposed enhancements to the information collected by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). They include:

• Using the CBP Home mobile app to allow “aliens who are subject to I-94 requirements and who are departing the United States, to voluntarily provide biographic data from their passports or other travel documents, facial images, and geolocation to provide evidence of that departure.” 
• An update to the ESTA app to load real-time selfies to match with a passport photo.
• Decommissioning the current ESTA website and transitioning solely to the app.
• Adding several “high value data” fields to the ESTA application. The long list of this data includes names, addresses and day and place of birth of relatives, personal and work phone numbers and emails used in the past, and biometrics.

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