The US started this shit known as ESTA. People going from visa-free countries to the US must submit a form and pay $21. Offline people are probably excluded, if not exceptionally inconvenienced. Unbanked people probably simply cannot enter the US (how would they pay the ESTA fee?). The ESTA includes a background check by snooping on the social media accounts of travelers, in advance, to look for disloyalty to the US by the traveler /or their friends/. Whereas in the past, ICE did that snooping spontaneously at the time of entry. Now it’s done in advance… likely to give them more time to snoop on the social media.

Businesses are exploiting the shit-show. Travel services where people book their travel have an ESTA form on their own sites, or that of a partner. They don’t talk about price… they just say fill it out on our site for convenience. Then they hit you with fees upwards of us$ 100 (5 times the cost of using the gov site). That much is a legal swindle, as they actually proxy the data for you. Then there are countless scammers masquerading as legit ESTA processors who just take your money. When you show up at US ICE without an ESTA, you are fucked. You must eat your travel costs. The system is designed to make travelers fully responsible for the shit that manifests from the shit-show.

The UK copied the US for reciprocity. Americans going to the UK needed an ETA, but Europeans do not. Fair enough… but perhaps Europeans going to the UK will be bent over by the same reciprocity in the future, after the EU requires UK citizens to file their version of it.

So yes, Europe is bringing in this garbage. IMO, it’s security theater. Many people are inconvienced and have to cough up lots of money… and many will lose their ass on non-reimbursable travel costs over this. At least EU citizens and their family members do not need an ETIAS to enter schangen. But it’s a shame the UK and EU don’t trust each other’s population.

I wonder what the impact will be on tourism. If I am trying to decide where to vacation, a country with this extra annoying snooping may struggle to make my short list.

(update) Connection hell:

ETIAS is required even for connecting intl. flights. Wow… fucking hell. Imagine a moroccan whose itinerary has a layover in Madrid, then Florida, before reaching Chile. IIUC, they would need a travel auth in Europe and a separate one for the US. They would have to pay €20+us$ 21 just for passing through… for the privilege of having that route.