The new visa application launched by The United States administration has become more stringent as it asks for social media handles for the last five years and biographical information going back 15 years.
Among the new fields is a section dedicated exclusively to social media, in which applicants are asked to provide their "unique user name" for any online service used to "create or share content" over the past five years.
Despite the Trump administration's strong-armed stance on tightening vetting procedures, the State Department previously said the heightened security measures would apply only to visa applicants deemed as a potential threat to national security and those "who have been determined to warrant additional scrutiny in connection with terrorism or other national security-related ineligibilities".
Reported by Reuters earlier today, the decision from the USA government's Office of Management and Budget was made over strenuous objections from education and academic groups during a public comment period.
Now it appears that the Trump Administration wants a further head start on perusing the digital lives of those entering the U.S. While the new questionnaire isn't as obviously invasive as a customs agent rifling through your vacation photos and text messages, it does give authorities an opportunity to dig deeper than they have before. The State Department estimated only 0.5 percent of the annual applicant pool, or about 65,000 people, would be under the additional scrutiny.
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Completing all fields of the questionnaire is voluntary - but the language at the bottom of the form clearly states that failure to provide the information "may delay or prevent the processing of an individual visa application".
Check out what the new Visa questionnaire looks like here. According to Fortune, the Department of Homeland Security first began requesting information about visitors' social media accounts previous year while former President Barack Obama was in office.
Passengers make their way in a security checkpoint at the International JFK Airport in New York, US.
The questionnaire even asks applicants to recount the source of the funds they used to pay for every trip they took outside their native country over the course of the last 15 years.
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