FIFA World Cup matches in USA could force fans from 42 nations to share social media history

The United States government is planning to order citizens from 42 visa-exempt countries to reveal past five years of history from their social media profiles before entering the country. This could affect fans from these countries who will travel for the upcoming FIFA World Cup that takes place next summer in US, Canada and Mexico.

A notice published earlier this week proposed for this change that will apply to 42 countries whose passport holders can enter the United States without a visa. Fans from New Zealand, Britain, France, Japan, South Korea and a lot of other nations would be affected through this decision.

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What are new proposed rules?

Since 2019, US authorities have demanded social media history from visitors coming into their country. However, citizens from 42 countries who were provided visa-free entry to the US were also exempted from sharing their social media histories.

The visa-exempt visitors could apply for a waiver through the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) which would make the history sharing part optional.

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Under the proposed new rules, even the ESTA applications will now have to mandatorily share their social media data. Phone numbers from the last five years, email addresses from the past decade, personal details of family members and biometric information are also to be shared.

The public has been given 60 days to comment on the proposal.

Fans from which countries will be affected?

The United States hosts the majority of World Cup matches and this change, if put into effect, will force a lot of fans to share their social media information.

Among the major footballing nations, fans from England, France, Germany, Netherlands, Portugal apart from a lot of other nations will face this additional scrutiny which they earlier never had to. Japan, South Korea, Australia will also see this rule being applied to them if the proposal receives final nod.