US to collect social media information of all immigrants from 18 October

It was announced by the Trump administration that it will collect the social media data of all immigrants from 18 October.

The DHS (Department of Homeland Security) will gather handles of social media, search results, associated information that is identifiable and aliases as part of immigration file of people.

To be impacted by the rule are also nationals of the United States who interact with immigrants on social media. These conversations will fall under the purview of government surveillance.

Faiza Patel of New York University Law School said this reform was necessitated by the idea that social media would help America thwart an attack on it.

Patel was quoted by BuzzFeed News as telling it that it was going to be tough to use successfully social media to ascertain what people would be doing or would not be doing. He said that as people use emojis or short form, it would not be easy to know what something implies.

Another concern, according to Patel is that the information collected by the US government would be used for ideological scrutiny.

Do people really want the government to keep tabs on their political views, he asked.

Published in the Federal Register in the third week of September, the new rule would be effective from 18 October.

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