U.S. idea to collect travelers’ passwords alarms privacy experts - houstonbeirst

To better vet foreign travelers, the U.S. might demand that any visa applicants hand over the passwords to their social media accounts, a proposal that's alarming privacy experts.

"If they don't want to give us the information, then they don't come," said John Emmett Kelly, the head of the Department of Homeland Security department, connected Tuesday.

Kelly mentioned the proposal in a congressional hearing when He was asked what his section was doing to look up at visa applicants' social media activity.

He aforementioned it was "very hard to really vet" the visa applicants from the seven Muslim-majority countries covered by the Trump administration's move back ban, which is now in legal limbo. Many of the countries are failed states with little internal infrastructure, he said.

Learning what social media services visa applicants utilize and asking for their passwords mightiness get along part of the vetting process, Kelly aforesaid.

The section is exclusive "thinking about" this idea, Kelly aforesaid. But in December, U.S. Customs and Border Trade protection began asking tramontane visitors traveling low-level a visa discharge program to provide their social media account IDs as an ex gratia request.

CSPAN

John Lackland Kelly, Secretary of the Section of Native lan Security.

That move was designed to help U.S. government spot "nefarious activity." However, privacy and free-speech advocates said the U.S power use the information to below the belt keep certain visitors retired of the rural area.

A key concern is that the U.S. is relying on soul's political ideology to vet their entryway, said Michael Macleod-Ball, head of staff with the Earth Polite Liberties Union's Washington Legislative Office.

"The issue is what entropy are they (U.S. march agents) looking, and how are they interpreting it," atomic number 2 said. "We've had all kinds of concerns over the ambiguities."

News that the Department of Homeland Security measur is thinking about expanding gregarious media monitoring aside needy passwords rattled whatsoever experts.

"The price for admission into the United States government shouldn't mean giving up your online life," said Robert McCaw, regime affairs department director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

He sees overmuch potential for the U.S. to unfairly direct Muslim groups.

"Do you remember all e-mail account, or Facebook explanation, or every message board you signed up for?" he asked. "If you forgot to discover one, wouldn't you be untruthful to a office?"

Numerous Muslim travelers coming to the U.S. also have blood-related OR business associates in the country. Tracking their multiethnic media activity would inevitably mean the monitoring of Islamic U.S. citizens, he said.

"This wish have a temperature reduction effect on how people intercommunicate with each other online," he same.

From a security stand, demanding visa applicants hand over passwords and then storing them might be a huge problem in itself. The government hardly has a stellar record in retention its personal databases safe from hackers, aforementioned Christopher Dore, a pardner at privacy law firm Edelson PC.

"The threat of a information breach to all that password information would be a immense danger to all those individuals," he same. "IT's a recipe for disaster."

Others think the DHS's proposal is superfluous and notice that U.S. intelligence agencies, such As the National Security Means, are already mining the cyberspace for hints about terrorist activity.

"It's bad obvious that if you're a terrorist you can create a dummy social media profile," aforesaid Timothy Edgar, academic director of Brown University's Executive Master in Cybersecurity program.

"Anyone who has an ounce of sense, and is plotting to do something bad, is going to break this insurance policy very easy," he said.

Edgar said demanding passwords from visa applicants will probably dissuade dependable foreign travelers, especially college students, from coming to the U.S.

The impact could spread, too. Other countries mightiness try to follow the U.S. example and demand travelers at their borders also give upwards their passwords

"We are giving other excuse to the bad authoritarian governments to engage in far-flung surveillance of social media accounts," he said. "When a John Roy Major nation adopts a practice, that tends to validate information technology."

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/411993/us-idea-to-collect-travelers-passwords-alarms-privacy-experts.html

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