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Facebook: Legal Action Against Employers Asking For Your Password
An anonymous reader writes "Facebook today weighed in on the issue of employers asking current and prospective employees for their Facebook passwords. The company noted that doing so undermines the privacy expectations and the security of both the user and the user's friends, as well as potentially exposes the employer to legal liability. The company is looking to draft new laws as well as take legal action against employers who do this."
A least one U.S. Senator agrees with them.
Right after you give me the root password to the company's servers!
Seems like a fair trade to me...
And it will always be my answer. Whether or not I use facebook is no one's business. Not my family. Not my friends. Not my co-workers or employers. "Please wear this delightful necklace with a GPS and a camera to take pictures of whatever is around you at any given time. BTW, it's a condition of employment." There's just something dark and sinister about that. How any employer could think this is a great idea when they know damned well they wouldn't be willing to share that information with their employees is looking upon their employees as a "lesser being" and certainly not equal as idealized by the US constitution. If this is not a "discriminatory act" it most definitely leads to discriminatory behavior.
There is already a list of things an employer cannot ask an employee for. I think it's time to make a law which issues a WHITE LIST of things employers can ask for rather than using the black list system we have today. The potential for this to become an ever-growing problem is too great.
Or better yet - don't have a Facebook account.
I won't even give my boss my work password. IT's my account and any access by another person to it would violate my ability to know anything done with that account was done by me. We have a policy against it. No one not even a superior is supposed to have access to our A/D account. Any changes have to be documented. They have the ability to change my password. There would be a record of who did it and questions can be asked then. I view all of my accounts with the same level of security. My companies involvement with me ends at their network.
Well in all fairness, facebook is the only one here that can stand up and make a difference. It's nearly impossible for each person that's been wronged
to prove their point, but if facebook gets enough complaints they can wave there deep pocketed arms and say, "wanna fight us, cuz we can fight for a loooong time"
So no, they aren't the bastions of privacy, but they are on the right side here. So good for them.
I didn't realise there were large companies that didn't do this. It seems like common sense.
Expecting common sense from large companies is certainly one way of ensuring that your life is full of surprises...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
They aren't protecting your privacy, they are protecting their own data integrity.
Why is refusing to provide such information not also a real solution? I would no more give access to my e-mail than I would provide the details of conversations between me and my wife.
If I were applying to any company, it would be as technical staff (IT.)
Handing over a password to *anything* would be proof of a lack of competence for the job, and I'd tell them that.
Ignorance killed the cat. Curiosity was framed.