As part of its enhanced screening of immigrants, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) proposes to begin collecting social media data from all immigrants entering the United States. Green card holders (permanent residents) and naturalised citizens will also come under scrutiny on this score.
The DHS plans to start collecting the social media information from October 18, the day when the Trump administration’s new travel ban order on citizens of seven countries is set to take effect, The New York Times reported.
The department, which has already published the new rule in the Federal Register, wants to include “social media handles, aliases, associated identifiable information and search results” as part of people’s immigration file, according to BuzzFeed News, the digital media website which first reported the news.
The DHS, however, has termed the move an amendment that does not represent any new policy. “DHS, in its law enforcement and immigration process capacity, has and continues to monitor publicly available social media to protect the homeland. In an effort to be transparent, to comply with existing regulations, and due to updates in the electronic immigration system, DHS decided to update its corresponding Privacy Act system of records,” the department said in a statement.
Privacy groups and lawyers, however, are exercised over the DHS move. “We see this as part of a larger process of high-tech surveillance of immigrants and more and more people being subjected to social media screening,” BuzzFeed quoted Adam Schwartz, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, as saying.
“There’s a growing trend at the Department of Homeland Security to be snooping on the social media of immigrants and foreigners and we think it’s an invasion of privacy and deters freedom of speech,” said Schwartz, noting the DHS plan would affect all US citizens who communicate with immigrants.
The American Civil liberties Union has also voiced its concern, with its National Policy Director Faiz Shakir saying: “This Privacy Act notice makes clear that the government intends to retain the social media information of people who have immigrated to this country, singling out a huge group of people to maintain files on what they say. This would undoubtedly have a chilling effect on the free speech that’s expressed every day on social media.”
Faiza Patel, co-director of the Brennan Center’s liberty and National Security Programme at New York University, told The Times that although it was true that the Obama administration collected social media information, the latest move by the Trump administration represents an escalation.
