The United States is seeking to introduce stricter digital-screening rules for millions of visitors entering the country under its Visa Waiver Program, proposing mandatory disclosure of social media activity spanning the past five years.
A new public notice issued by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) indicates that the planned update to the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) has been released ahead of its formal appearance in the Federal Register.
US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) explained that the revised system would oblige applicants to list their social media identifiers from the last five years, marking a significant shift from the current optional disclosure.
“The data element will require ESTA applicants to provide their social media from the last 5 years,” the notice states.
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CBP said the change is part of efforts to comply with Executive Order 14161, signed in January 2025, directing federal agencies to expand vetting systems to better identify potential foreign security risks. The agency argued that mandatory social-media reporting would boost its ability to confirm identities, detect fraud and strengthen national-security assessments.
Beyond social platforms, CBP intends to introduce a wide range of additional data fields, including email addresses used over the past decade, phone numbers used in the last five years, IP addresses, photo metadata, detailed family information, and an expanded suite of biometrics such as facial scans, fingerprints, iris data and DNA.
The department said the broader data collection aligns with updated federal biographic-data rules issued in April and is aimed at improving identity verification across the system.
Another significant shift is a proposal to shut down the ESTA web-application portal, transitioning entirely to a mobile-app-only submission process.
The Visa Waiver Program, which includes travellers from 40 countries, handles more than 14 million ESTA applications each year. The additional data requirements and the move to a mobile-only system are expected to increase compliance demands, according to new processing-time estimates published by the agency.
DHS is inviting public comments on all proposed updates — including the compulsory social media disclosure — for a 60-day period following publication in the Federal Register.
If adopted, the changes would represent one of the most far-reaching expansions of digital-identity and social-media screening in the history of US immigration policy.
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