‘Effective immediately, …’: US embassy in India wants everyone applying for F, M, or J non-immigrant US visas to change this privacy setting of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other social media accounts

The US embassy in India has introduced a brand new guideline for these applying for scholar and alternate customer visas. The new guidelines, efficient instantly, are relevant to all candidates of F, M, and J non-immigrant visas who will now have to set their social media accounts to public. The transfer, the embassy stated, is aimed toward serving to U.S. officers confirm the identification and eligibility of visa candidates in the course of the safety screening course of. The US embassy shared this replace in a publish on X (previously often known as Twitter), saying that the change is important to “facilitate vetting necessary to establish their identity and admissibility to the United States under U.S. law.”

“Effective immediately, all individuals applying for an F, M, or J nonimmigrant visa are requested to adjust the privacy settings on all of their social media accounts to public to facilitate vetting necessary to establish their identity and admissibility to the United States under U.S. law,” the publish says.

New social media guidelines for F, M, and J non-immigrant US visa candidates

F, M and J visas are the widespread varieties of non-immigrant visas issued by the company to overseas nationals who want to examine or take part in alternate customer applications in the U.S. F visa is usually utilized by tutorial college students, the M visa by vocational college students, and the J visa by alternate guests, together with researchers, students, and interns.Under the brand new guidelines, Indian college students and others planning to examine or take part in alternate applications in the U.S. will now want to be sure that their social media profiles are seen to the general public earlier than submitting their visa functions.While the U.S. authorities has beforehand required candidates to checklist their social media handles as half of the visa utility course of, this new step goes additional by asking candidates to take away privacy restrictions so officers can view their on-line content material extra simply.However, officers haven’t specified how lengthy candidates want to maintain their profiles public, however the transfer indicators rising scrutiny of on-line habits as half of visa vetting.