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Comment by Ididntdothis | Hacker News Reader

Do other countries do stuff like that too? In German media I often read about things like security researchers not allowed to go a conference in the US or people turned around for their twitter posts. Does this really happen often and do other countries for example in Europe do this too?

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China is actively checking people's phones at airports and land/sea entrance points for evidence that the person attended or supports the protests in Hong Kong. People have certainly been denied entry and held for a few hours, and may have been taken into longer-term detention.

The fact that the US has been doing similar for a long time has been widely used as justification for China's actions...

In Europe, definitly not while applying for a visum (they don't want your online-handles and passwords for example). You'll probably get "background-checked" from the interior intelligence agencies (e.g. Verfassungsschutz) while completing the formal immigration process, but that is a completely different story than a mere visum.

I imagine there would have to be some kind of GDPR exception for that to happen in Europe.

GDPR can be overridden by any law that deems data access necessary for government officers to do their job. When those laws are overturned by the courts, it's not on the basis of GDPR or similar laws, it's usually because they violate the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which has a constitution-like status due to the Treaty of Lisbon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_of_Fundamental_Rights_...

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