The Trump administration has announced it will begin to collect the social media information of all immigrants.
The Department of Homeland Security will include "social media handles, aliases, associated identifiable information, and search results" as part of people's immigration file.
The rule will also affect US citizens who communicate with immigrants on social media, as their conversations will become the subject of government surveillance.
New York University Law School's Brennan Centre Liberty and National Security program co-director Faiza Patel said this change is prompted by the belief that social media is going to help the US stop an attack in the country.
"It's very difficult to successfully use social media to determine what people are going or not going to do," Patel told BuzzFeed News. "People use emojis, they use short form, sometimes it's difficult to know what something means."
Another concern, Mr Patel said, is that the information gathered would be used by the US government for ideological vetting.
"The question is do we really want the government monitoring political views?" Patel said.
The new rule, published in the Federal Register last week, is set to take effect on October 18.
Newshub.
