For several consecutive months, growing unease has taken root among foreign nationals—and even among individuals who hold both U.S. citizenship and that of another country—regarding the possible influence of their public online presence on their ability to travel to and from the United States without interference. What initially seemed a remote concern has steadily evolved into a pressing reality, as evidence continues to mount that a person’s digital footprint, particularly their social media history, may become a decisive factor in determining whether their travel rights remain unrestricted. The emerging consensus is unmistakable: the impact of one’s online behavior on international mobility is substantial and expanding.

This week, that concern became more concrete when the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency (CBP) published, through the Federal Register on Tuesday, a proposed revision to existing border policies. The proposal reveals the agency’s intent to conduct extensive reviews of visitors’ social media activities prior to granting them entry—an initiative that would apply even to travelers originating from nations historically considered among the most trusted and least scrutinized under U.S. immigration law. Such a measure signals a notable expansion of digital vetting beyond high-risk categories and into previously low-interest travel corridors.

In the accompanying official statement, CBP explicitly invited the general public to provide comments on a series of newly outlined modifications to the immigration and entry process. Within that list, item number three stands out for its far-reaching implications. It reads: “Mandatory Social Media: In order to comply with Executive Order 14161, issued in January 2025 and titled ‘Protecting the United States From Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats,’ CBP will incorporate social media as a compulsory component within the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) application. Applicants will be obligated to furnish information regarding all social media accounts they have maintained during the past five years.” This stipulation effectively transforms what was once an optional field into an obligatory one, symbolizing a deeper institutional reliance on digital identity assessments.

For clarification, ESTA—the Electronic System for Travel Authorization—is the online platform through which citizens of countries participating in the Visa Waiver Program must apply for preauthorization to enter the United States for short visits, typically up to ninety days. The proposed changes are not targeted at travelers from nations previously subject to restrictive measures, such as those once listed under the travel bans implemented during the Trump administration—countries including Afghanistan, Myanmar, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. Instead, the policy reaches into the domain of so-called visa waiver countries, whose citizens have traditionally been greeted as low-risk visitors under a presumption of trust and streamlined entry.

At present, travelers from countries such as Australia, Japan, France, Iceland, the United Kingdom, and South Korea ordinarily need only to pay a modest fee—currently forty dollars—through the ESTA system or its accompanying mobile application to secure authorization to enter and circulate within the United States for brief periods. Yet under the new proposal, these same visitors would be subjected to a far more comprehensive digital and personal background review. In addition to the disclosure of social media details, CBP aims to expand required data fields to include personal email addresses used over the past decade, as well as highly specific information pertaining to family members—names, residential addresses, birth dates, and other identifying particulars. The overall effect would transform a relatively simple online travel authorization into a multi-layered dossier of personal and communicative data.

This initiative is part of a broader pattern of intensified scrutiny concerning social media use by prospective entrants to the United States. Only weeks earlier, the U.S. Department of State announced complementary measures, extending such monitoring to applicants for longer-term visas, including H-1B and H-4 categories—those typically sought by foreign professionals and their dependents relocating to the U.S. for employment. Under this framework, visa seekers are directed to ensure that all their social media accounts are publicly accessible, effectively requiring them to adjust privacy settings to “public.” Unlike the ESTA proposal, which limits review to posts within a five-year period, the State Department initiative outlines no equivalent temporal restriction, implying an even broader scope of assessment.

Commentators have begun to weigh the probable implications of these policies for tourism and labor mobility alike. Speaking to *The New York Times*, Bo Cooper, a representative of the immigration law firm Fragomen, observed that the evaluation process—because it involves qualitative judgments about online expression and gives authorities the discretion to deny travel on the basis of perceived ideological or behavioral concerns—puts new pressure on freedom of speech in a global context. Cooper noted that policymakers and analysts alike will be closely observing how international tourism numbers respond once the effects of this policy extend beyond theoretical debate and begin to influence travelers’ real-world decisions.

Indeed, early projections hint at possible repercussions. A study conducted in June by the World Travel and Tourism Council, as reported by *Forbes*, assessed the tourism outlook across 184 nations. The findings identified the United States as the only country anticipated to experience a decline in inbound tourism in 2025. While numerous factors inevitably influence travel trends, these data raise the possibility that increasingly invasive digital screening procedures could deter potential visitors who value privacy, autonomy, and freedom of expression. What began as an attempt to bolster national security may, therefore, have lasting consequences for the nation’s image, economy, and global engagement with travelers in the years ahead.

Sourse: https://gizmodo.com/cbp-announces-plan-to-look-at-foreign-tourists-social-media-activity-prior-to-u-s-entry-2000697654