The ethical challenges of America’s social media vetting policy
The US government is incorporating social media vetting as part of its border control policy, leading to concerns about what data will be collected and how it will be protected
On 10 December, 2025, the United States government announced that visitors wishing to enter America from any of the 42 visa waiver programme countries would have to undergo social media vetting. Visitors would also be required to disclose personal information about close family members.
The notice was created by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Customs and Border Protection (CBP). It was approved by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) through an emergency clearance, which was justified due to an unspecified “unanticipated event”, with the claim that following the normal Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) process could result in “public harm”.
“We have been aware that people’s social media was often monitored, but this is the first time that such a policy has been so comprehensive and announced it was going to be applied routinely, whereas before it tended to be evidence-led around particular individuals,” says James Baker, platform power and free expression programme manager at the Open Rights Group.
The announcement also stated the intention to add “high-value data fields” to the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) application.
This additional information includes, for example, both personal and business telephone numbers used in the past five years; email addresses used in the past 10 years; IP addresses and metadata from electronically submitted photos; a variety of information on family members (such as names, residencies and phone numbers) and a range of biometrics (including face, fingerprint, DNA and iris).
These updates to America’s border control policy are to comply with Executive Order 14161, which was published on 20 January, 2025. The stated intention of the executive order is to protect its citizens from “aliens who intend to commit terrorist attacks, threaten our national security, espouse hateful ideology, or otherwise exploit the immigration laws for malevolent purposes”.
Social media vetting is nothing new and is typically used by organisations to ensure job applicants do not promote violence, criminal behaviour or associate with extremist groups. By analysing someone’s behaviour online, they can identify potential signs of radicalisation and other possible criminal behaviour.
Unfortunately, social media is not always an accurate method of representing someone. There is a performative element to social media, where people tend to post only certain aspects of their lives.
Regardless of the drivers behind the vetting process, this would be a massive disclosure of personal information, without any assurances of how the data will be stored or protected against misuse in the future. Although not mentioned in the notice, any data collection and social media vetting would be expected to comply with America’s Privacy Act.
There are also ethical concerns regarding the disclosure of personal data belonging to family members. Personally identifiable information typically requires – under the General Data Protection Regulation, for example – the consent of the data owner for that information to be shared. Encouraging the sharing of family members’ data with a foreign government, without mention of the need of consent, raises ethical questions about data protection and sovereignty.
AI likely to be used
Given the additional processing that data collection and social media vetting would require, artificial intelligence (AI) systems are likely to be used to analyse the massive amounts of information that would be collected.
The CBP already uses the Automated Targeting System (ATS), an online application that screens all international travellers and cargo entering or leaving the US. Meanwhile, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) uses the automated rule-based screening platform ATLAS to identify law enforcement, public safety or national security threats. Babel Street Insights is also used to identify what people have said on social media.
“The real threat of AI is not that it will gain super intelligence, but it’s going to make surveillance super cheap and easy for governments to deploy, at scale, algorithms to survey a lot of social media quite easily,” says Baker.
Unfortunately, AI does not always provide accurate results, as there have been several instances of AI tools hallucinating answers.
This is compounded by there still being a lack of understanding in the logic underpinning the decision-making process of AI tools – they are a metaphorical black box. Although AI is getting better at context, it still cannot always understand sarcasm or hyperbole. There have also been incidents of strong bias against posts in Arabic being flagged for potential terrorism content.
It is unclear what will happen with all the personal information provided as part of the visa process. There is no mention of data being deleted (or stored, to be fair), but if it is stored, such information would inevitably become a high-value target for hackers and could also cause concern regarding future misuse to target specific demographics.
Parallels have been drawn between America’s new visa process and China’s border control policy, such as the searching of smartphones and laptops, which America previously criticised.
“My personal feelings are that I am very concerned by this and know that many will now no longer travel to the US, especially in my circles, and when they will be travelling it will be with replacement devices and social media accounts,” says Duncan McCann, technology and data lead for the Good Law Project.
A worrying precedent
There is also an argument that the White House announcement is contrary to the first amendment of the United States constitution, which states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
Digital surveillance and social media vetting have been known to have a chilling effect on free speech. People fear their messages are being watched, causing them to disengage from online discourse or alter their behaviour online, despite being law-abiding members of society.
Some individuals – for example, transgender people – may well be concerned about “outing” themselves through the vetting processes.
Social media is sometimes used by people to explore aspects of themselves, such as gender and/or sexuality, in a safe space. However, anyone not wishing to unlock their restricted social media accounts could be suspected of hiding criminal behaviour.
“Countries tend to copy each other in trends, like the social media ban in Australia and now loads of countries are talking about it,” says Baker. “Once one country does something, it normalises it for everyone else.”
The notice by the CBP sets a worrying precedent that other countries may follow in the future. Ultimately, social media vetting of travellers into America is a massive increase in surveillance that will have a detrimental impact on free speech for those considering visiting the country. The amount of information that is asked for also raises significant concerns about the potential risk of data being stolen or abused in the future.
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