Dec 11 2025, 09:18 AM, updated 7d ago
Tourists to the United States would have to reveal their social media activity from the last five years, under new Trump administration plans.
The mandatory new disclosures would apply to the 42 countries whose nationals are currently permitted to enter the US without a visa, including longtime US allies Britain, France, Australia, Germany and Japan.
In a notice published on Tuesday, the US Customs and Border Protection agency (CBP) said it would also require any telephone numbers used by visitors over the same period, and any email addresses used in the last decade, as well as face, fingerprint, DNA and iris biometrics. It would also ask for the names, addresses, birthdates and birthplaces of family members, including children.
CBP said the new changes to the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (Esta) application were required in order to comply with an executive order issued by Donald Trump on the first day of his new term. In it, the US president called for restrictions to ensure visitors to the US “do not bear hostile attitudes toward its citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles”.
The plan would throw a wrench into travel for the World Cup, which the US is co-hosting with Canada and Mexico next year. Fifa has said it expects to attract 5 million fans to the stadiums, and millions more visitors to the US, Canada and Mexico.
Tourism to the US has already dropped dramatically in Trump’s second term, as the president has pushed a draconian crackdown on immigrants, including recent moves to ban all asylum claims and to stop migration entirely from more than 30 countries.
California tourism authorities are predicting a 9% decline in foreign visits to the state this year, while Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles reported a 50% fall in foot traffic over the summer. Las Vegas, too, has been badly hit by a decline in visits, worsened by the rise of mobile gambling apps.
Statistics Canada said Canadian residents who made a return trip to the US by car dropped 36.9% in July 2025 compared with the same month in 2024, while commercial airline travel from Canada dropped by 25.8% in July compared with the previous year, as relations between the two countries plummeted.
The US has already started squeezing foreign tourism in other ways, slapping an additional $100 fee per foreign visitor per day to visit national parks, such as the Grand Canyon and Yosemite, on top of the regular admission fees. Nor will national parks have free admission on Martin Luther King Jr Day any longer – but they will now be free for US residents to visit on Trump’s birthday.
The notice gives members of the public two months to comment. The Department of Homeland Security, under which CBP operates, did not respond to media outlets’ requests for comment. Meta, which owns two of the biggest social media platforms – Facebook and Instagram – did not immediately respond to questions.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/de...ial-media-trump
Tourists to US must reveal 5 years of social media
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