So, apparently, the United States is now thinking that before a tourist from anywhere vaguely civilised steps foot on their soil, they might need to hand over five years of social media history.

Yes – Five Years. Not just the occasional embarrassing selfie or ill‑advised comment on your neighbour’s parking, but every single thing you’ve liked, posted, shared, or accidentally reacted to in a fit of tired boredom. It’s as though someone at Homeland Security watched Black Mirror once and thought, “You know what would be really fun? Making Brits feel guilty about their late‑night TikTok binges before they can buy a hot dog at Times Square.”

Why, you ask? Security, naturally. They say it’s to verify identity and sniff out potential threats. Which is fair in theory, but one can’t help but wonder if a single tweet about missing your flight at T5 Heathrow will be misinterpreted as a diabolical plot. I can see the officer now, squinting at your digital life like it’s an ancient manuscript, muttering “they really do love cats more than democracy, do they not?”

Now, what does this mean for the average Brit? Well, some sensible souls are already planning to carry a second phone that’s been scrubbed clean, featuring only innocent accounts that follow cake recipes, Pilates coaches, and the Teletubbies. That way, if anyone peeks, it looks like you’re a harmless, slightly odd, but ultimately inoffensive tourist. Imagine trying to explain that your main account is full of political rants, dad jokes, and embarrassing selfies from 2018. You might as well hand over your diary and hope for the best. A phone dedicated to nothing but wholesome content sounds absurd, but frankly, it might become the new normal for anyone who enjoys a bit of privacy.

And if you don’t use social media at all? Well, rest easy. No one’s going to confiscate your passport mid‑flight because you haven’t Instagrammed your breakfast. They’re asking for identifiers and handles you’ve used, not forcing you to start an account tomorrow morning. So the Luddites among us, the people whose phones are basically bricks for emergencies only, should be safe. Though one suspects a lot of them will spend the entire queue at customs sweating profusely while explaining they genuinely haven’t posted a single TikTok dance.

The kids, though, are where it really gets ridiculous. Imagine a ten-year-old’s awkward attempts at humour and Minecraft bragging being scrutinised by a faceless official. The AI reads it, calmly processes it, and files it away. Probably thinks, “Hmm, future engineer or future troublemaker? Let’s keep watching.” The parents sweat quietly, the children roll their eyes, and the AI hums on, completely uninterested in tantrums or crocodile tears.

Meanwhile, for anyone planning a trip to the USA, their brain is possibly doing somersaults. Should they set up a “clean” account like a digital witness protection program? Should all they follow now be the local town page and British Bake Off accounts? One can imagine a perfectly normal person trying to explain, “Yes, I did enjoy looking at pictures from our park in 2018. No, I did not intend to overthrow any government.” The AI nods politely, perhaps makes a note in its virtual notebook, and moves on. No scolding, no judgement, just processing. Which is somehow more terrifying than a customs officer barking at you.

And now, because reality is already halfway to nonsense, let’s take it all the way and imagine how this AI actually “reacts” to your five-year digital scrapbook. Not judging, not tutting, just calmly observing like a very posh digital butler who’s been trained at some avant‑garde American finishing school for algorithms.

Picture this:

The AI opens your Instagram. It sees a photo of you in 2020 holding a badly poured pint in your garden during lockdown. The AI logs it neutrally. “Subject demonstrates poor pint‑pouring technique. No further action.” Then it notices the comments from your mate Steve saying “that head tho.” It pauses, processes, and silently tags it as “British humour, harmless.”

Next, it scrolls to your 2021 Facebook memory. You shared a rant about rail strikes. The AI highlights it and politely notes, “Subject is emotionally affected by train delays. Statistical analysis: 95 percent of UK population shares this trait. Low concern.” It moves on like it’s leafing through an art gallery brochure, entirely calm, entirely systematic.

Then it lands on your TikTok from 2022. The one where you attempted a dance trend, hesitated halfway, knocked over a lamp, and then swore loudly. The AI watches it. Twice. Possibly thrice. No emotion. No judgement. Just a tiny internal annotation: “Subject is unlikely to join professional dance troupe. Threat level: zero.”

Your Twitter history is next. The AI scrolls through your late‑night posts that range from “why is my takeaway always cold when I need it most” to “I swear my neighbour is hoovering at midnight again” to the infamous “pineapple on pizza is a war crime.” The AI considers each. It doesn’t care about the pineapple comment. It doesn’t care that you once tweeted angrily at a brand because your parcel was late. It simply labels them all: “standard British distress signals.”

Then it taps into your Pinterest. The AI genuinely doesn’t know what to do with Pinterest. It encounters a board about “cosy autumn vibes,” a board about “cottage gardens,” and a very confused one titled “maybe hairstyles???” with three pins and nothing else. The AI logs: “Data inconclusive, appears decorative.”

Then comes the real moment of crisis: it finds your meme folder. That sacred, chaotic, deeply personal meme folder. The AI opens it and is immediately confronted with a barrage of nonsense. A pigeon wearing sunglasses. A frog on a scooter. The phrase “I am once again asking” plastered onto a photo of a pizza decorated with pineapple. Ten identical screenshots of the same joke because you forgot you saved it already. The AI does not break, because it cannot. But it hesitates for exactly 0.0000003 seconds. It makes a note: “British humour detected. High density. No known translation.”

And somewhere deep in its circuitry, it accepts defeat.

Then it looks at your WhatsApp profile picture from 2019, where you unexpectedly blinked mid‑photo and now look like you’ve seen something unspeakable in the distance. The AI logs it calmly. “Facial anomalies detected on subject. Human verification required – pull person aside.”

It checks your YouTube history: videos about how to fix a wonky cupboard, three hours of thunderstorms to fall asleep to, a compilation titled “dogs failing at basic physics,” and one single video about Ancient Rome because the algorithm once tempted you. The AI records: “Curiosity present. Human. Approved.”

And the kids? Oh the AI positively glides through their content. It sees Roblox screenshots, Minecraft builds, a TikTok of a half‑executed cartwheel, fifteen emojis in a row that logically mean nothing, and a comment from a classmate saying “lol u noob.” The AI simply labels the entire collection: “Child.”

So yes, our digital butler AI processes all of this without raising so much as a virtual eyebrow. Meanwhile, the human traveller is sweating like they’re in an interrogation room at the police station, clutching their phone, hoping the AI doesn’t find the one cursed meme they forgot to delete from 2020.

But the AI isn’t judging. It isn’t emotional. It isn’t cackling. It’s just doing its job, quietly cataloguing the last five years of your questionable online decision‑making. A diary you accidentally wrote with your thumbs instead of your thoughts. And at the end, after all that, it probably stamps you as “Approved; appears harmless, fondness for scones noted,” and sends you through to baggage reclaim.

And all of this, remember, for information that Meta, TikTok, Google, and probably even your toaster already know. You’re essentially showing the Americans a five‑year highlight reel of things their tech giants saw first.

The world is wild. The AI is calm. And the British traveller is somewhere in the middle, muttering “bloody hell” while hoping the robot didn’t notice the karaoke video from 2021 or the fact that you follow a few Instasluts. Meanwhile, every other human in the queue is frantically wondering if that obscure 2018 meme about a giraffe with a tropical tan and dubious looking toupee counts as suspicious activity.

So yes, in the future, if you fancy a trip to Orlando, you may have to hand over five years of your online life. The AI will look at it, be completely unflappable, and probably file it away with a virtual note that says, “Interesting person. Loves scones. No apparent threat.”

You can then breathe a sigh of relief, forget to collect your luggage, and think to yourself, “Well, at least they didn’t ask me to explain my Pinterest board about stockings and high heels.” And life goes on, slightly absurd, mildly terrifying, but undeniably very British.