Visa applicants to the United States could be asked to provide passwords to their social media accounts for background checks, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said on Tuesday.
Kelly said the move could come as part of efforts to toughen vetting of visitors to screen out people who could pose a security threat.
He said it was one of the issues under consideration, especially for visitors from seven Muslim majority countries with very weak background screening of their own — Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.
“We’re looking at some enhanced or some additional screening,” Kelly told a hearing of the House Homeland Security Committee. “We may want to get on their social media, with passwords,” he added.
“It’s very hard to truly vet these people in these countries, the seven countries... But if they come in, we want to say, what websites do they visit, and give us your passwords. So, we can see what they do on the internet,” Kelly said.
“If they don’t want to cooperate, then they don’t come in to the United States,” he said.
Kelly stressed that no decision had been made yet, but said tighter screening was definitely in the pipeline, even if it means longer delays for awarding visas to visitors.
“But over there, we can ask them for this kind of information and if they truly want to come to America, then they will cooperate. If not, next in line,” he said.
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