Slashdot Mirror
Password Protection Act: Bans Bosses Asking For Facebook Passwords
An anonymous reader writes "On the heels of a similar bill introduced last month. A group of Democrats today introduced legislation in both the House and Senate to prevent employers from forcing employers and job applicants into sharing information from their personal social networking accounts. In other words, Maryland may soon not be the only state that has banned employers demanding access to Facebook accounts. The Password Protection Act of 2012 (PPA) would also prevent employers from accessing information on any computer that isn't owned or controlled by an employee, including private e-mail accounts, photo sharing sites, and smartphones."
They'll demand you add them as a friend!
How is this the domain of the United States Congress?
Jesus told him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. - John 14:6 NLT
If corporations are people, these laws probably exist already.
Regardless of laws, the audacity of demanding personal passwords as a condition of employment just boggles my mind.
We're employees hired to do a job and go home. We're not paid to room and board our employer in our underpants.
Yes, it actually happened
No, it's not. See above
Unfortunately not yet. But there could be soon.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
The Password Protection Act of 2012 (PPA) would also prevent employers from accessing information on any computer that isn't owned or controlled by an employee, including private e-mail accounts, photo sharing sites, and smartphones.
I assume the summary meant to say that the act prevents employers from accessing information on any computer that is owned or controlled by an employee.
As an applicant, you are not yet an employee. If they want to demand that I give them that information after I am an employee, and I refuse, I would not be surprised if there can be a wrongful termination lawsuit.
They must be.... americans.
1) Americans is always capitalized.
2) Congress Critters are not Americans, at least not in spirit or action.
3) I take that as a compliment. Taking action and creating laws to protect somebody's privacy is always a good thing. Neither governments or corporations should have access to private information that has nothing to do with job, not performed while on the job, or performed on equipment or services not provided for by the corporation.
Security and background checks for some jobs might require a little more... but how many Americans actually work in jobs that are that regulated and require security clearances? Not that many.
This is why I am a staunch advocate of giving separate Internet access at work for employees and having a very well spelled out policy that nothing personal is ever performed on corporate equipment, ever. Nothing corporate ever makes it to personal equipment either. Violation can result in punitive actions all the way up to dismissal. When they are on break and in the break room, feel free to use their smartphones or tablets connected up to the public wi-fi and do whatever they want.
Strict segregation works perfectly fine and is only a problem for the new "hip" techies that have an idealistic vision of bring-your-own-equipment. Which all that really translates to is your company is too fucking cheap to purchase the required hardware and they let their idealism allow all the users to get abused by management that only sees reduced costs. That's my opinion at least, feel free to flame and mod away.
Of course the reality is that if you really need that job you have pretty much no option but hand over whatever the boss asks for.
Sure, in theory you could refuse, and when you get fired (or not hired in the first place) in theory you could drag them into court, but in practice the vast majority of working folks can't afford to lose the job in the first place, and can't afford the lawyers in the second.
This would be about as effective as most workplace safety laws - sure you can refuse to do dangerous work, but when there are a hundred people lined up who are prepared to climb on a four story roof with no safety harness you'll find yourself unemployed very fast.
Three Squirrels
Yeah, it didn't make sense. After reading the article, it was clearly a typo, and should have said "from accessing information on any computer that isn't owned or controlled by an employer". Ie. employers can still demand you hand over passwords on *their* systems, which seems reasonable enough.
That's why it is illegal to ask a large number of questions that are not directly relevant to the job; it is an unjustifiable source of potential bias. This law really isn't needed, what we need is a more general one outlining ALL cases to this effect, rather than several laws trying to specific specific things you cannot ask.
Great Intellect...
That happens a lot - similar bills are introduced, debated in committee, etc. Some are better than others, and if the process isn't completely broken (not even going there...) the various ideas get consolidated into something that meets everyone's needs and is then introduced to the floor.
In this case, it seems like a law protecting any of your password-protected/private information (email, photo sharing, online backups, whatever) would be much more powerful than the previous one that focused mostly on your "social networking" accounts...
No, the Fourth Amendment only covers state action; it doesn't address searches by third parties (unless they are being used as agents of the state).
I'm a lawyer, but not yours. I wouldn't represent someone who thinks taking legal advice from Slashdot is a good idea.
the constant stream of news about police brutality, unjust situations, erosion of rights, destruction of the economy, etc., etc. has left me hopeless, with only the prospect of gaming the system instead of fighting it.
Not me. These things have made me start looking for jobs outside the USA.
You would have thought wrong, since the 4th Amendment imposes no restrictions on private conduct.
"Just don't use social media and you won't have to hide from your employer"
And when you tell them this, they believe you are lying and don't hire you. Or hell, consider that a personality flaw and don't hire you for being anti-social.
"Or.. Gasp... Be careful and keep it safe for work at all times. "
Because living in fear is exactly what we should all aspire to, right?
"One really should not put anything online that you would not want EVERYBODY to be able to read."
Bit of a difference between, say, posting on a blog, and being pressed into giving someone else a password to your private accounts. Would you be against letting them scan your hard drive for anything they might find objectionable? After all, what's the difference? Your computer is connected to the internet.
"Everything you put online, pictures, comments, blogs, chats etc. is going to be public information forever, or at least it CAN end up out living you. Remember that every time you are tempted to post."
Does that apply to spineless pro-corporate shilling on slashdot?
I kind of see this all as a non-issue. In some ways the loss of privacy is a bad thing... in other ways it is good. We didn't see much motion in the gay rights movement until people started to come out. I think the same is going to start to happen in other parts of society - the petty prejudices aren't going to hold up so well in an age where everyone is more open. Not to say I am for invasions of privacy, but it is going to happen, and it isn't all bad. I also can see being closed off as becoming something itself considered undesirable and I think rightly so.
Great Intellect...
Simple solution: modify your facebook password to match a section of your DNA. Then asking for any of those things would require you to surrender your facebook password.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Most people's Facebook status includes their Marital Status, Religion, etc., several things that are not allowed to be asked in of a prospective employee. So I would think somebody could have gotten them on that.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
If you're posting evidence of yourself committing a criminal act online then you've got bigger issues than what your employer thinks about it...
(Note - No judgement here on whether this particular act should be illegal or not, just that it currently is)
Blah blah blah ... prove it. Prove it's me and NOT YOUR LACK OF SKILLS OR OTHER QUALIFICATIONS! prove it Asshole!
Go back, reread your post. With a little luck, you'll see what your problem is.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
This sounds like overbearing government intrusion into the private market to me. Employers should be free to demand whatever they want as a condition of employment, from high-school transcripts to semen samples! If you don't like it, find another place to work!
The Password Protection Act of 2012 (PPA) would also prevent employers from accessing information on any computer that isn't owned or controlled by an employee, including private e-mail accounts, photo sharing sites, and smartphones."
Shouldn't that be isn't owned or controlled by the employer or company instead? An employee's personal computer (and I'm using personal here to mean one that belongs to the employee) shouldn't be accessed by the employer either.
If you log into my friend's account and you're not my friend, you now have access to information in my profile that I did not give you permission to.
Facebook's ToS explicitly prohibits doing this.
Violating a website's ToS in order to gain access to information you don't have permission to access is, I think, some sort of federal crime.
Any lawyers care to chime in on this one?
IANAL - Last I checked, the DOJ ruled violating the TOS is criminal and goes against Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. An appeals court ruled violating a TOS is not criminal, but several other appeals courts have. It is now going to the supreme court, but it currently stands to be criminal
Anyway, where I was going with this is handing over your password or asking for another person's password is in violation of Facebook's TOS. It currently stands that asking for your password or asking to even see your FB account is criminal, and I'm pretty sure it is illegal to require a potential employee to participate in something illegal.
I also thought it was illegal to require an employee or potential employee to violate a legally binding contract, such as a TOS.
That's why it is illegal to ask a large number of questions that are not directly relevant to the job
It's not illegal. It's just inadvisable. If one of your questions exposes membership in a protected class, there is a risk that there may be liability / possibility of a discrimination suit.
However ill advised, if you want to refuse employment to a janitor who never played Chess or Checkers, can't remember the rules to the game Go, or can't beat the interviewer in a poker game, the employer can do that, as long as they are consistent and require the same of every candidate.
It just happens that employers are in the business to select employees, and any irrelevent question is a waste of time.
> So your solution is don't use social media and you won't have to hide it - even
> though as I said that will not work because they will rightly assume
> you're probably lying (it is simply not the common case),
[...deletia...]
> The end point of this is that almost everyone now uses social media
Wrong. Check out http://www.socialbakers.com/facebook-statistics/ Most English-speaking countries are at approx 50% of the population. As of the time of posting...
* USA 50.72%
* UK 49.63%
* Canada 53.39%
* Australia 51.48%
* New Zealand 51.40%
That's number of accounts divided by population. Stuff that isn't supposed to happen, but does...
* children under 13 with accounts; they merely lie about their age
* people with multiple accounts. E.g. a squeaky-clean one for their employer, and a "real account" under a different name, and multiple accounts to rig Farmville, etc.
* There aren't supposed to be a bunch of bot-accounts, but you can go out and buy 1,000 or 5,000 or 10,000 "Likes". What does that tell you?
Normally, these bogus accounts can hide in the background. But for small countries it really stands out. Note that Monaco has accounts for 124.31% of its population. Don't believe the 900 million crap you hear.
BTW. I'm not on Facebook.
Wonder why I don't trust Zuckerberg?
It's because I'm not a dumb fuck
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/09/20/100920fa_fact_vargas?currentPage=all
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user