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The United States is preparing to make social media disclosure a compulsory requirement for millions of travellers entering the country under its visa-free travel programme.
A new public notice issued by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) confirms that the proposed update to the Electronic System for Travel Authorisation (ESTA) has been released ahead of its formal publication in the Federal Register.
US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said the revision would require applicants to provide details of their social media accounts from the past five years as part of a broader security overhaul.
CBP explained that the update seeks to comply with Executive Order 14161, signed in January 2025, which instructs federal agencies to strengthen screening procedures to identify potential foreign security risks.
Previously, ESTA applicants could choose whether to share their social media identifiers. Under the new rules, this disclosure becomes mandatory.
According to the notice, “The data element will require ESTA applicants to provide their social media from the last five years.”
The agency said making the information compulsory would improve its ability to verify identities, detect fraudulent applications, and identify possible threats.
The proposal also sets out several additional “high-value data fields” CBP intends to collect: email addresses used over the past 10 years, phone numbers from the past five years, IP addresses, metadata from uploaded photographs, detailed family information, and an expanded range of biometrics—including facial, fingerprint, iris and DNA data.
DHS said the widened data collection aligns with updated federal biographic requirements issued in April and will strengthen identity verification across the entire system.
Another major change is the planned closure of the ESTA web portal, requiring all applications to be submitted exclusively through the mobile app.
The Visa Waiver Programme — used by travellers from 40 countries — processes more than 14 million ESTA applications each year.
The expanded data requirements and the shift to an app-only process are expected to significantly increase the compliance burden on travellers, as reflected in CBP’s revised processing-time estimates.
DHS is currently inviting public comments on the proposed changes, including the mandatory social media disclosure, during a 60-day review period following publication in the Federal Register.
If approved, the update would amount to one of the most substantial expansions of digital-identity and social-media screening in US immigration procedures.
