In the last couple of years with the boom of social media employers have been able to expand their horizons when performing checks on your background. With services such as Facebook and Twitter an employer can see what you do in your personal life in a matter of clicks.
However now that this has become commonplace more potential employees are taking actions to strengthen their privacy and maintain a clear separation between their personal and professional lives. Much to the dismay of more and more employers have begun to demand employee's to befriend HR reps and take down privacy settings, or in some more extreme cases even demand the password to there social networks. I could not even believe that this was even legal but also a commonplace throughout the country. Employers were essentially making you choose between your right to privacy and your livelihood.
What's scary about this push by employers to know more and more information about you, is that daily we give these websites more and more information about ourselves. Utilities like Google and Facebook have grown due to their convenience. We store almost all of our daily lives in these sites, our friends, our contacts, our pictures, our locations. It's crazy to think that these sites more information on us than ever and now employers are forcing you to give them complete access to them. In addition due to the harsh job climate we are facing for many families it the choice between having food on the table or being able to stand up for your rights.
In a recent case the Maryland Department of Corrections asked an employee for his Facebook password to verify that an extended leave of absence was actually due to a death in his family. Orin Kerr a George Washington University professor summed it up saying, "it would be akin to asking someone the keys to their house." Luckily as a result of this Maryland Legislatures passed a bill prohibiting employers from asking you for your password. In addition other states such as Illinois have followed suit. What still shocks me is that in Facebook's terms of service its clearly stated that the site forbids, "anyone from soliciting the login information or accessing an account belonging to someone else." Hopefully more states will follow Maryland's lead and being to crack down on employers. The last thing employee's should have to choose between is job security and Facebook security.
I think it was a great idea to pass that law; our lives at home should not affect our lives inside the work field. But I am going to play devil’s advocate here, but what about teachers? Many teachers have facebook, twitters, and other social media sites; they use to communicate with their students, should the teachers be able to do this? I would not want my middle school or high school child to be following a teacher’s personal site, and vice versa. If you were a parent, how would you feel about that? Here is a great example of what maybe school districts should do. http://on.ksdk.com/Qi0bOG Do you think this is going too far? How should we determine what is acceptable for an employer employee relationship?
ReplyDeleteI agree with Madal, the fact that this law was passed is definitely a step in the right direction. I think that Facebook became so important to society, so quickly that laws like this haven't had time to be put in place. Just over a week ago, California passed a law which forbids any employers from asking for their potential employees’ Facebook passwords. (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2410388,00.asp) Personally, I believe it is a huge violation of privacy for an employer to ask a potential employer for their Facebook password. The information posted by someone, or their Facebook friends is intended to be as private as they want.
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