STEP program?

[annaonthemoon]

Okay, so I read the recent Worldwide Travel Alert, which in a nutshell says: The US Department of State alerts citizens traveling and residing abroad to the enhanced potential for anti-American violence....blah, blah blah...strongly urged to limit their travel outside of their homes and hotels....Okay, so I think that's probably being overly

Comments

[bart_calendar]

I haven't registered for it, but it can be helpful in some situations

[he1ena]

I registered for it today. I don't see how it could hurt, especially living in England.

[devinshire]

I hope I don't come off as a total nut for saying this, but it sounds like a tracking scheme to me. They're offering a number of vague "benefits" for enrolling in the program, but they are the kind of things that the State Department should be doing anyway without having to get people to enroll in a program. The US government knows where I live because I give them my address on the tax returns I file. As far as I'm concerned, that's all the information they need!

[intendent]

my husband is nearly done with a PhD in computer science with an emphasis in privacy and I refuse to sign up for all the reasons you mention.

[krizteen]

This. They also have all the information when you come/go through country borders, and if you visit the US they again have the information listed on that paper card (forget the form name). I've been living in Hungary for 4 years, and I was registered with my student visa & residence permit as an American, then I switched over to be registered as an Italian. They still have all of that information, so I feel like I'm set.

[meteoricpath]

this.

and anyway, don't they know where we are once we scan our passports in at the border? The new US Passports (and the UK ones too, AFAIK) all have tracking chips in them as well.

[yrpreciousheart]

I've been signed up on STEP for a loooong time - I've been living in the UK for two years and actually forgot that I was even signed up on STEP, it's non-obtrusive or anything. Really, it doesn't hurt to have another place you're registered in case anything happens - natural disaster, terrorism, whatever. It's just another safeguard in case the government needs to get a hold of you for any reason - I've heard of people who have had family deaths being contacted through STEP and other programs since it's faster than sifting through all of the times you've used your passport into and out of the UK in the past few years. They at least have your mobile number, if necessary.

This turned into a ramble because I have distractions all around, but the TL;DR is: It's been neither positive or negative in my case, but it doesn't spam you and really couldn't hurt. :D

[sassalicious]

i registered with the state dept. when i was living in vietnam. it's was actually helpful because they sent out email alerts on things like tropial storms in the area, resulting landslides, information of tax stuff, and i recently got one about how home invasions of expats in ho chi minh city is on the rise and 2 security guards were killed at someone's home.

so i guess it doesn't hurt to register and sometimes it's beneficial.