I think it’s all some level of FUD until there’s an example of it being called out as a reason for denial. The fields have been on the application for a while, but I know someone who recently came in with a private ig profile and a vk profile that hadn’t been used for anything but chat. Wasn’t mentioned at all along the process beyond being on the application.
That may change soon, but it also might just be rhetoric from dipshits playing to their dipshit base.
Fair enough, though that’s an ask from the State Dept., not a demand from the embassy, as indicated in the OP. It’s an important distinction because the embassy holds the authority at that point in the process. They can ignore the guidance altogether or demand everyone open their profiles. They’re probably more likely to do the latter now, but they could’ve done this two years ago too.
Demanding the usernames for the past 5 years and being suspect of anyone not on social media isn’t a new, that was my main point. I don’t think many people appreciated how shitfucked our visa processes are, even before the current “administration” helping.
The username requirement isn’t anything new; that requirement was on our DS-160 years ago.
The “wants people to set their social media profiles to public” isn’t quoted, so seems less like an official policy anywhere and more like one embassy worker being a prick. Unfortunately, each individual embassy operates independently totally devoid of any accountability.
This process is dehumanizing, inefficient, and totally fucked…but this particular part of it has been this was for a long-ass time.
I don’t think an article writing for an audience that needs API defined is the place to get the finer details. Also, does it really matter? Keeping secrets out of the repo is pretty basic stuff, so there’s a lack of fundamental information security awareness.
I’d bet all the monies that there’s a bunch of unencrypted spreadsheets with enough data to steal millions of identities on some idiot’s Google Drive or whatever, and a bunch of it’s been shared with commercial LLMs without any of our consent. Our personal data’s being handled less securely than the average corporate SharePoint site’s plans for the next pizza party.