New U.S. Visa Rule Requires Applicants to Set Social Media Account Privacy to Public

The United States Embassy in India has announced that applicants for F, M, and J nonimmigrant visas should make their social media accounts public.

The new guideline seeks to help officials verify the identity and eligibility of applicants under U.S. law. The U.S. Embassy said every visa application review is a “national security decision.”

“Effective immediately, all individuals applying for an F, M, or J nonimmigrant visa are requested to adjust the privacy settings on all of their personal social media accounts to ‘public’ to facilitate vetting necessary to establish their identity and admissibility to the United States,” the embassy said in a post on X.

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Under the new rules, Indian students and others planning to pursue academia or enroll in vocational or exchange programs are mandated to ensure that their social media profiles are set to public before submitting their visa applications. A refusal to set the accounts to “public” could be grounds for rejection.

The embassy noted that the United States has required visa applicants to provide social media identifiers on immigrant and nonimmigrant visa application forms since 2019.

It also said every piece of “available” information is used as part of its visa screening and vetting to identify visa applicants who are deemed inadmissible to the country, including those who pose a threat to its national security. However, it did not spell out what these steps would look for.

Similar directives have been issued by other U.S. embassies across the world, with the U.S. Embassy in Mexico stating that visa applicants must list all social media usernames or handles of every platform they have used from the last 5 years.

The development comes weeks after U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration ordered embassies around the world to stop scheduling appointments for student visas to expand social media vetting of such applicants. Last week, the U.S. Department of State said it’s resuming the process, but with new measures that require applicants to unlock their social media accounts for government review.

“The United States must be vigilant during the visa issuance process to ensure that those applying for admission into the United States do not intend to harm Americans and our national interests, and that all applicants credibly establish their eligibility for the visa sought, including that they intend to engage in activities consistent with the terms for their admission,” the department said.

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