Homeland security will collect social media information from immigrants

On Monday, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that it would add social media handles to the immigration records and collect useful information, the Verge reported. The new changes introduced by the Department to the immigration are permissible under the Privacy Act of 1974.

What are the new rules introduced by the DHS?

Last week, the department published a notice in the Federal Register with a new update related to immigration.

The immigration dossier will include the social network username of an immigrant, aliases, associated identifiable information, and search results, Newsweek reported.

The new rules are planned to come into effect on October 18, the same day when Trump's immigration restrictions, announced for the citizens of eight countries on Sunday, will come into effect. It is assumed that the US authorities will collect the details of social networks not only from the people applying for an American visa but also from the permanent residents and naturalized US citizens.

In August, John Cornyn, a Republican senator from Texas, proposed a bill that would allow the Department of Homeland Security to check the social media account of the visa applicants from countries which pose a risk to the national security, especially the visitors from majority-Muslim countries.

He also proposed to collect the immigrant's DNA and deploy drones near the US border.

An international San Francisco-based non-profit organization the Electronic Frontier Foundation said that the bill would threaten the social media privacy of innocent foreign travelers.

The US government wants to minimise terrorism

Earlier, the US government had already asked the selective foreigners to disclose their activities on social media to detect the potential terrorist threats. The government introduced a visa waiver application that many immigrants are required to submit before coming to the US.

Terrorists have repeatedly stated their extremist views on the pages of social networks. For example, terrorists Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, shortly before the murder of 14 people in San Bernardino in 2015, announced on social networks that they act on behalf of the terrorist group Islamic State, banned in the United States and many other countries. Tashfeen moved to the United States to marry Syed Rizwan Farook after getting a green card in July 2015. She was born in Pakistan.