How the new U.S. visa rules affect your online privacy

The Hindu

5 hours ago

The story so far: On June 23, the U.S. Embassy in India said in an X post, 'Effective immediately, all individuals applying for an F, M, or J nonimmigrant visa are requested to adjust the privacy settings on all of their social media accounts to public to facilitate vetting necessary to establish their identity and admissibility to the United States under U.S. law.'
With that update, the process for securing certain types of U.S. visas — including for studying there — has become precarious.
How does this affect students' visa applications?
While social media vetting for U.S. visas has been in place since 2019, the new announcement signals that foreign students are set to face unprecedented levels of surveillance when travelling to the U.S. for study and/or work.
Some of the social media accounts that users will now have to flag on their visa application and make public for inspection include Reddit, Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter (now X), Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube, apart from several Chinese social media platforms and other websites that users may submit independently (such as Threads, Bluesky, unlisted blogging spaces, or personal websites). This means that both personal and professional qualifications, posts, replies, uploaded photos/videos, past comments, tagged pictures/posts, status updates, and even 'liked' content will need to be made visible to U.S. government authorities, where possible.
Why are U.S. immigration officers checking social media accounts?
In light of pro-Palestinian student protests and anti-ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) demonstrations across U.S. cities, officials likely want to make sure that Indian students coming into the country will not support such activities or express anti-Israeli views during the ongoing conflicts in West Asia.
Vetting visa applicants' social media feeds also means that authorities can check if the individual's views align with those of the conservative Trump government that is in power.
How long will social media accounts have to be left open?
U.S. visa seekers are being asked to list all social media handles they have used in the last five years, and then make them public.
Users can first carry out a social media audit to clean up their accounts and remove any sensitive or personal media before opening it up to the public. Minors should carry out this activity with the guidance of a trusted adult. Notifications, app alerts, messaging filters, and parental controls may need to be updated as well, to prevent disruption after the account goes public.
No official guidance has been issued as to how long the accounts need to be left open. However, visa applicants who want to play it safe can keep their accounts publicly visible from the time they submit their application up to the time they pass their immigration checks after entering the U.S. However, visa applicants who are not comfortable with keeping all their social media accounts public should contact their relevant institutions or admissions officers in order to learn the latest policies and know when it is advisable to go private again.
While deleting social media accounts entirely may sound like a way to avoid this hassle, remember that some tech companies keep even deleted accounts active for several weeks or months. These accounts of yours may still show up in search results when the vetting process begins, possibly jeopardising the visa application.
What are the risks of making social media accounts public?
Privacy, censorship, and security risks abound. First and foremost, many Indian students who apply for U.S. visas for academic study are usually minors in high-school. For them, keeping their social media accounts set to private is more than just a personal preference; it is crucial for their safety online.
Many young users learning to navigate online spaces might post highly personal content or photos and videos across private accounts, secure in the knowledge that only people close to them can see their content. Now, however, those hoping to go to the U.S. for study will either have to make their accounts public or scrub personal content from their channels.
The new requirement will also make U.S. visa applicants, and especially children, more vulnerable to digital security crimes such as bullying, hacking, sexual harassment, stalking, blackmail, identify theft, and doxxing.
Increased levels of targeted advertising through accounts made public, including advertising aimed at kids, is another potential threat to consider.
Is it legal to make visa applicants set their social media accounts to public?
Privacy experts have slammed the U.S. government's new social media vetting requirements, likening the country's approach to that of an authoritarian regime. However, they note it is difficult to claim that privacy laws are being broken as visa applicants can choose to ignore the request, though they put their visa application at risk by doing so.
Sophia Cope, Senior Staff Attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), an American digital rights group, said there were many valid reasons for people to have private social media accounts, such as wanting to interact and share content only with trusted contacts.
'The U.S. government is endorsing the violation of a fundamental principle of privacy hygiene by asking those seeking student or exchange visas to set their social media accounts to 'public' for the purpose of visa vetting,' said Cope in response to The Hindu.
'Ascribing a nefarious intent and penalizing would-be students or visitors to the U.S. for keeping their online presence shielded from the general public or for not even being active on social media is an outrage. Moreover, government social media surveillance invades privacy and chills freedom of speech, and it is prone to errors and misinterpretation without ever having been proven effective at assessing security threats,' she explained.
'The U.S. must end this dangerous practice.'