Filling in social media accounts is now mandatory when applying for a US visa

The US has put new visa application forms online requiring nearly all applicants to provide their social media account names. Also, visitors to the country are required to fill in old email addresses and phone numbers.

According to CBS News, the new forms include a list of social media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube that require the visa applicant to fill in their account names. For platforms not on the list, providing account names is still voluntary, but the US is expanding the list. This concerns account names that people have had in the past five years, and the e-mail addresses and telephone numbers of the past five years must also be entered. Those who do not fill in the forms truthfully run the risk of ‘serious immigration consequences’, US authorities tell The Hill.

The measure applies to any person applying for a visa for the United States. This means that in a year it is expected to be about fourteen million visa applications for work and study and seven hundred thousand applications for immigration. Only certain diplomatic visas are excluded from the requirement. It is not about the so-called Esta forms for travel authorization to the US, which tourists have to fill in. The authorities have also been asking for account names for social media since 2016, but the details are optional.

The US uses the data for background research on visa applicants. The aim is, for example, to help prevent terrorists from entering the country. The measure was announced in March last year and came into effect on Friday. Persons applying for a visa who came from a country with an increased risk of the presence of terrorist groups were already required to give up their social media accounts. This involved about 65,000 people per year.