In this Digital Age, You Can’t Hide Behind the Screen

When reports surfaced that the U.S. government was expanding its scrutiny of online behavior as part of visa and passport screening procedures, the public reaction was swift, and divided. To some, it was a logical evolution of national security practices in the digital era. To others, it signaled the end of any meaningful boundary between private life and public identity.

At the heart of this shift lies a growing truth: your online persona is no longer a separate version of you, it is you.

Each comment, like, post, or search contributes to a digital profile that can be analyzed, interpreted, and judged by both human and algorithmic systems. Where once border checks relied on paperwork and fingerprints, today’s assessments include Instagram captions, Twitter threads, and even deleted content recovered from archives.

Digital footprints have become a form of biometric evidence, persistent, expansive, and often outside the control of the individual.

Eric Appiah, an IT and sustainability expert, says the permanence of online records, combined with the speed of AI analysis, creates a powerful surveillance mechanism. “What you say online becomes part of a behavioral database,” Appiah noted. “It doesn’t just reflect what you think, it predicts what you might do.”

That predictive element is what makes the practice so appealing to governments. Algorithms trained on vast quantities of public data can identify patterns in speech, flag controversial keywords, and map social networks. A visa applicant who once shared a political meme or participated in a protest discussion could find themselves subject to additional vetting, not because of criminal history, but because their digital history raises questions.

“This isn’t about catching what you did wrong,” Appiah added. “It’s about estimating who you might become. That’s a different kind of surveillance, more speculative, more opaque, and potentially more dangerous.”

He also warned about the widening gap between what people think is private and what actually is. “People assume their digital life is scattered and forgotten. But in reality, it’s being stitched together by machines in ways we’re only beginning to understand.”

According to Appiah, the consequences go beyond immigration. “We’re heading toward a future where social media becomes a permanent layer of identification, more visible than your passport, and more telling than your CV,” he said. “And unlike paper documents, you can’t withdraw it from circulation.”

He also noted that most users are unprepared for the long-term implications. “We’ve never really had a social contract for the internet,” Appiah explained. “People gave up data in exchange for convenience, but no one agreed that it could follow them across borders, jobs, or generations.”

This represents a fundamental transformation in how identity is constructed and evaluated. In the past, identity was anchored in official records: birth certificates, school transcripts, passports. Today, identity is distributed across servers, cached in data centers, and shaped by algorithms trained to interpret human behavior through a digital lens.

What complicates this further is the role of artificial intelligence. AI systems now assist in flagging risks, ranking applicants, and cross-referencing digital activity. These systems may not always operate transparently, raising concerns about fairness, bias, and due process. And yet, their judgments can shape the outcomes of real lives.

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