We knew this was coming, but now the clock is running. From Privacy International:

"Yesterday the Trump Administration announced a proposed change in policy for travellers to the U.S. It applies to the powers of data collection by the Customs and Border Police (CBP)."

"If the proposed changes are adopted after the 60-day consultation, then millions of travellers to the U.S. will be forced to use a U.S. government mobile phone app, submit their social media from the last five years and email addresses used in the last ten years, including of family members. They’re also proposing the collection of DNA."

PI linked to and summarized a Federal Register entry describing the proposed requirements:

-All visitors must submit ‘their social media from the last 5 years’

-ESTA (Electronic System for Travel Authorization) applications will include ‘high value data fields’, ‘when feasible’
‘telephone numbers used in the last five years’
-‘email addresses used in the last ten years’
-‘family number telephone numbers (sic) used in the last five years’
-biometrics – face, fingerprint, DNA, and iris
-business telephone numbers used in the last five years
-business email addresses used in the last ten years.

https://www.privacyinternational.org/news-analysis/5713/trump-administration-wants-your-dna-and-social-media

The Federal Register entry says comments are encouraged and
must be submitted (no later than February 9, 2026) to be assured of consideration.

Federal Register entry: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2025-12-10/pdf/2025-22461.pdf

@briankrebs FIFA's Word Cup tournaments in the U.S. need to be boycotted or cancelled. This puts the world at the mercy of these thugs.

@briankrebs going to assume this will also be imposed on US citizens returning home from overseas travel.

@briankrebs I would be unable to comply, even if I wanted to (and hell, I don't want to).

I regularly use unique Email addresses and not all of them are documented. I guess that 5 years means 500+ email addresses.

HaveIBennPwned quite often informs me, how wise that move is 🙂. Do they allow wildcards in email addresses?

There are several more "no go" points in that text. And if a relative would hand out any information about me, I would consider that a breach of trust. So I won't do that either.

I think any person wanting to visit the U.S. at the current state must be completely nuts.

I feel for anyone in the travel, tourism and hospitality industries, which make up ~ 10M jobs and ~ 3 percent of the nation's GDP. From the U.S. International Trade Administration (trade.gov)

"Inbound international travel to the United States plays a vital role in the Nation’s economy and promotes cultural exchange and understanding. Travel and tourism is the largest single services export for the United States, accounting for 22 percent of the country’s services exports and 7 percent of all exports in 2023. The travel and tourism industry contributed $2.3 trillion to the U.S. economy in 2022 (2.97 percent of the country’s GDP), supporting 9.5 million jobs."

@briankrebs Email provided for comment doesn't work.

@farbel Did you try to send to cbp_pra@cbp.dhs.gov? Did you get a bounce?

@briankrebs This is totally insane 😳

@briankrebs

I'm British, white, male, aged 60-ish.

Prior to February 2016 I typically visited the USA 3 times a year for up to six weeks.

Since February 2016 I have visited the USA twice in a decade, for a total of 10 days.

Entering the USA as a foreigner, with a Republican POTUS in the White House, *never* felt safe, but under Trump it looks diabolically dangerous. (And to a glance I resemble "one of them": I'm not female or dark-skinned.)

@briankrebs just cancel the Olympics and the FIFA World Cup as the next step.

I will not travel to the US in 2026 just as sure as I would not recommend time travel to Germany 1936 to a jew.

@cstross @briankrebs Living here is not a walk in the park at this point...

I'd never ask anybody to travel here now. I'm glad I'm no longer in the events-organizing part of tech -- I couldn't host anything anywhere in the U.S. if it required people to come from outside.

Not our largest problem right now, but it's a fairly nasty symptom.

@jzb @cstross @briankrebs Agreed. No one should visit the States now. It's not safe here.

@briankrebs lmao if they wanted those types of data points on me, they'd have a lot to fish through! I've been using dummy phone numbers, emails, and identities for services for over a decade. I'm talking hundreds of numbers. Thousands of emails. Do they count bots as my social media? Literally gigs of plaintext to sort through. Not to mention I post encrypted blobs in places too.

This is just going to impact our economy negatively. Zero forethought.

@briankrebs DNA, huh?

Tell me you want to close the border without telling me you want to close the border.

@briankrebs So given you have to go through US immigration/customs even if just transiting through the US, this is also going to impact US Airlines, as who wants to turn over all that data even if just spending a few hours air side on the way to some where else?

@briankrebs How To Kill Tourism For Dummies™

@briankrebs This will cripple business travel to the US and DESTROY the tourism industry.

@briankrebs So, the Trump plan is no more international travelers to the US?

It's a bold strategy - let's see how that works out.

This proposal reminds me - way too much - of Intourist, the USSR's foreign travel bureau. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intourist

@briankrebs why on earth would anybody want to travel to the us these days? - The US citizens need to resist right now. History is watching, not resisting now is being part of the problem.

@briankrebs

I've said it once, I'll say it again. It is absolutely IRRESPONSIBLE to organize in-person events in the US that invite participants from abroad. it is materially unsafe. film festivals, conferences, sporting events, exhibits, book tours,...
Shut it down.

@briankrebs
I wonder if bigwigs in the US hospitality industry will be submitting any comments.

@briankrebs If this happens, the EU should impose similar restrictions on U.S. citizen travelers.

@arrakeen_urbanite @briankrebs that would definitely suck for us citizens, but our government would not care. Punch them, not us

@independentpen @arrakeen_urbanite @briankrebs Exactly. Just because the government of one country turns fascist does not mean that we, as Europeans, should abandon our core values, such as those enshrined in the European Charter of Fundamental Rights.

If our European values are to be more than a paper exercise, we must be prepared to uphold them.

@tdr @independentpen @arrakeen_urbanite @briankrebs Also, tourism is an export product. If they want to sabotage their export to us, that doesn't force us to do an equally dumb thing in reverse.

@hypostase @cstross @briankrebs

I have NEVER been given a hard time traveling to another country. It's always coming back to the states some asshole gives me a hard time. It's just insane. I LOVED getting global entry and not having to deal with the assholes anymore.

@darwinwoodka @hypostase @briankrebs

I remember reading a discussion on Reddit a decade or two ago in which a British business traveller explained that immigration at Imam Khomenei Airport, Tehran, was *welcoming and friendly* compared to JFK—and the USA (under Bush II) was about as pleasant to enter as Moscow during the Brezhnev years.

By all accounts it is now much, much worse.

@briankrebs

Peter Thiel maw into Palantir is getting insatiable.

@briankrebs Great way to cut travel into the U.S. down to a small trickle of people who simply must come for whatever urgent reason.

@briankrebs Moving closer to requiring mark of the beast....

I learned about sleeper cells in the country and Cold War-era Soviet training site near Vinnytsia, Ukraine, where the Soviet KGB built a mock “American town” to train spies in everyday U.S. life and culture practicing things like driving cars, shopping, cooking, talking with “neighbors,” and other civilian routines to prepare them for infiltration into the United States. This “town” was reportedly constructed around 1959 and used through the 1960s so KGB operatives could rehearse how Americans lived by interacting in a setting modeled after American small towns complete with people playing roles like police officers, businessmen, bankers, and neighbors.

Why do I bring this up?

Because reading into these CIA docs my first impression was we need to shut down the country to foreigners. Then I learned that the purpose of Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations were for America to lose it's freedoms and democracy. Which they largely accomplished post 9/11 with airport security, enhanced surveillance, etc.

So although whatever Trump and the IC think they are trying to do.. it will only have the reverse effect. Playing right into playbook of foreign adversaries. America losing it's freedom and being beacon to world by offering the same freedoms.

@briankrebs I don't remember a number of those things even if I wanted to.

@briankrebs I think we can be sure the mandatory CBP app for the application won't be trustable either and could well be backdooring your device.

Canada needs to apply the same rule to every truck crossing the border, especially to/from Alaska and searching each one for fentanyl or russian contraband.

Just say no to #fashpass

@briankrebs
I've never seen anybody shoot themselves in the foot *through* their dixk before.

@briankrebs fash? Pass.

@fl0und3r So...pass on #fashpass? I like yours better.

@hans So naive it borders on "nuts" 😜.

@briankrebs

All very good reasons to never fly into or over the US, until this fascist nonsense is history.

@briankrebs This will 100% tank 100% of the travel to the U.S. We need to impeach the fat orange fscist as fast as we can to prevent further damage. ANY U.S. house representative or senator also needs to be voted out in the midterms (if they are up for reelection) if they do not side with the will of the people to impeach. And anyone still in office needs to be censored for not voting to impeach.

@briankrebs no-one has ever gathered my PII for the purposes of giving it to an enemy government, so I'm just going to assume that anyone complying with this will be contravening the GDPR 😉

@briankrebs Forced to use mobile phone app? Like... mobile phone is now a requirement to enter US? Mobile phone capable of running that app? Not good. Asking for personal data of other people? That should not be legal. Nor should be the other stuff :-(.

@briankrebs

Reminder that US Citizenship, to get rid of, is a COST of $2,350

This citizenship is literally a debt hole. Its a "pay to exit", if you have a ticket to another country.

If not, you're trapped here.

https://common.usembassy.gov/en/renounce-citizenship/

@briankrebs Yeah, like I was ever submitting this data to flicking nazis. In Finland we have a saying: ”You can keep your forklift!” 😃

@pavel @briankrebs

#RyanAir just announced me that I HAVE to install their app to have access to my boarding pass. No web version of the app available.

https://www.ryanair.com/ie/en/lp/explore/digital-boarding-pass

Shame! Shame!

@mcepl @briankrebs That page has steps for "don't have a smartphone". But yes, still a shame and reason to avoid ryanair.

@briankrebs Bye bye World Cup. Bye bye Olympics. Bye bye tourism and international business conferences

@briankrebs right about now, no one should be going to the USA, the only language the 🟠 understands is money, he really doesn't care about people, no matter who they are.

@TGG303 @briankrebs If tourists does not come to USA, he will put tariffs on these countries. 🙃

@briankrebs Under the current administration, the US capacity, and downright craving, for self-harm seems infinite.

@masek "The potential terrorist has been apprehended at the border. He knowingly omitted the necessary information to keep our country safe. The dangerous individual is currently held in one of our detention centers and will be sent back to his home country after he or his family paid the processing and safekeeping fee in full."

@hyperbolix Guess they'll charge 5-star-prices while the services may not up to that standards 🙂. Heard the WIFI in the detention centers shall be pretty sub-par....

@etchedpixels @briankrebs Another Suwałki Gap in the making?

@briankrebs Wrong tense. _Made up_ 3% of the nation's GDP.

@briankrebs

The Federal Register entry says comments are encouraged and must be submitted (no later than February 9, 2026) to be assured of consideration.

Probably a silly question (and perhaps I read the privacyinternational.org article too quickly), but how does one, as a random US citizen, provide comment?

I searched the PDF for “respon” to see if there was a URL or similar reference, but one didn’t seem to be present?

I guess Amazon won’t need to plan for nearly as many attendees at this year’s re:Invent (one wonders the impact on other US-hosted conferences, festivals, etc.).

@ferricoxide there's an email address listed in the Federal Register entry: CBP_
PRA@cbp.dhs.gov. Submissions have to include the OMB Control Number 1651-0111.

@briankrebs

You have cpb instead of cbp :P

I was getting a bounce until I realized I was writing CPB_PRA instead of CBP_PRA 🤦

CC: @farbel@mas.to

@briankrebs IMO the only sensible way to enter the US is, and has been for some months, either via parachute or landing boat. Think "Operation Overlord." @craignicol

@briankrebs
I'm glad I had the chance to visit the United States when it was still open to tourists. Too bad it's closed now.

@briankrebs Stephen Miller's anti-human aggression enforcement hooligans are certainly America's worst ambassadors you could think of.

(Not to mention all of the "Heritage Foundation's Trump regime btw....)

@briankrebs my social media from the past 10 minutes would get me banned.

@briankrebs we’re hoping that when you reboot your country the malware gets uninstalled. Good luck

@briankrebs Three percent GDP eh? Do better. Great Britain achieved about 4% by their self-imposed sanctions regime.

@briankrebs we’d already decided we won’t enter the US (or transit through it) under any circumstances for the foreseeable future. This just reinforces that I guess.

@mlevison @briankrebs
Just having a mastodon account will get you banned instantly.

@briankrebs

What's scary is that the Dems have a very poor record when it comes to undoing some of the evil stuff by the Republicans (Patriot Act anyone?)

I reckon whatever happens with the next elections, this is here to stay