ProPublica: “Extreme Digital Vetting of Visitors to the U.S. Moves Forward Under a New Name”

At a tech industry conference hosted by the Government Technology & Services Coalition last month, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) invited software providers to begin the process of creating algorithms that would monitor the social media accounts of visa holders deemed to be a high risk in order to assess potential threats to the US. The agency announced that they would need tools equipped with “risk-based matrices” that would continue social media surveillance throughout these visa holders’ stay in the US so that ICE may predict any threats. These requests are the first clear plans showing ICE’s intent to augment tougher visa vetting with the monitoring of social media through a program now named “Visa Lifecycle Vetting.” 

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