The United States is preparing to widen its security net once again, this time by asking millions of prospective visitors to surrender five years of their social-media history as part of the routine travel authorisation process. It is framed as a modest adjustment to an existing system designed to keep the country safe. Yet the scale and intrusiveness of the proposed requirement point to something far more consequential: the quiet normalisation of digital exposure as the price of entry.

The Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) was created to make transatlantic and trans-Pacific travel easier for citizens of friendly nations. For years, it was held up as a model of how security screening could be made both rigorous and frictionless. Now, the shift from limited personal details to an archive of online identities marks a fundamental redefinition of what governments believe they are entitled to know. It is not merely the........

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