New visa control rules: why do US immigration agents need fictitious social media pages

US Citizenship and Immigration Services employees can now create fake social media accounts to track information about foreigners entering the country. Previously, it was forbidden to employees of the department to create fake profiles on social networks to check applicants for visas to the United States.

Фото: Depositphotos

In a statement US Citizenship and Immigration Services Fake accounts and identities are said to make it easier for investigators to look for potential evidence of fraud when they decide whether to allow anyone to enter the United States.

It is unclear how the creation of fake social media accounts will work, given the policies of platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, which clearly and unequivocally state that accounts of people impersonating others violate the terms of their use.

Twitter and Facebook recently closed many accounts that are believed to have used false identities and were managed by the Chinese government to conduct information transactions.

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“Using fake personal data and the Twitter platform to monitor people is against our policies. We look forward to clarifying the proposed practice. US Citizenship and Immigration Servicesto determine if it meets our conditions of service, " — The Twitter statement said.

Analysis of social networks using fake accounts will be carried out in immigration cases, in respect of which it will be decided that they require additional investigation. It is noted that employees will be able to view only publicly available information from users on social networks, they cannot “make friends” or “follow” the object of their investigation.

According to a document from the Department of Homeland Security, employees are also not allowed to interact with users on social networking sites, and they can only passively view information.

Dave Maass, senior researcher at the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Civil Liberties Protection Group, said using such fake accounts “undermines our trust in social media companies and our ability to keep in touch with people.”

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In January 2017, the former Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Jeh Johnson, issued an updated instruction for employees of the agency, giving the right US Citizenship and Immigration Services “Conduct law enforcement activities, including but not limited to access to the Internet and publicly available social media content using a fictitious account or identity.”

Support for additional checks on the biographical data of suspicious people on social networks was caused by the aftermath of the 2015 attack in San Bernardino, which killed 14 people. Then the wife of the shooter Sayyed Rizvan Farouk, Tashfien Malik, received entry to the United States on a bride's visa — A document that didn’t include verification on social networks.

The day after the attack, Facebook discovered a post on a page run by Malik. It spoke of the devotion of the woman and her fiance to the terrorist organization "Islamic State". The page was maintained under a pseudonym. Authorities said Malik and Farooq exchanged messages about jihad and martyrdom online before the shooting in the United States.

The two eventually died in a shootout with the police.

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