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In the information age, it may be tempting for employers to seek
out personal information about prospective employees before making
a hiring decision and, given the number of social media outlets,
including Facebook, it is certainly easy for employers to do so.
Indeed, Facebook is a potential wealth of information that
otherwise might not be available to an employer through the
traditional hiring process.
Because of the recent uproar by legislators around the country,
employers who request Facebook and other social media passwords
from prospective employees may want to rethink this practice. State
legislatures are moving to ban the practice, and some states have
already succeeded in passing bills prohibiting such requests,
including Maryland and Illinois. Similar proposals have been
introduced in New York, California, Washington, and Ohio. Further,
federal legislators introduced a similar bill in the U.S. House of Representatives in
late April and companion proposals in the both the House and U.S.
Senate in early May. Facebook itself prohibits users from sharing
passwords, and Facebook's chief privacy officer has publicly warned employers that Facebook may
take action against employers who request passwords, stating that
Facebook will "take action to protect the privacy and security
of our users, whether by engaging policymakers or, where
appropriate, by initiating legal action, including by shutting down
applications that abuse their privileges."
Even without this momentum, employers expose themselves to
unnecessary legal problems when requesting passwords from
prospective employees. Facebook pages typically include a
person's age, race, religion, marital status, and other
identifying information, putting employers at risk for claims of
illegal discrimination. For example, a prospective employee could
sue a company, alleging that the company's decision not to hire
the individual was based on the company's knowledge of the
person's religious identity, information that could have been
gleaned only through the company's access to the
individual's Facebook page.
In short, employers would be wise to instruct their human
resources departments to put a stop to password requests.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general
guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought
about your specific circumstances.
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