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."

Comments

And now..

[Severus Snape]

They'll demand you add them as a friend!

Re:And now..

[gstrickler]

That would be covered under

Prohibits an employer from forcing prospective or current employees to provide access to their own private account as a condition of employment.

Re:And now..

[cayenne8]

While I am all for this type of legislature, I have to ask myself, on what authority do the FEDS have to make this law?

I'm not sure how I see this falling into the interstate commerce clause? I mean, a person works in his state....money paid to him in a state in which he is responsible for state taxes, etc.

I would think this would have to be done on a state basis, and not a federal one?

Sorry, but these days...I'm questioning every law the feds are trying to pass, and trying to understand where the constitutional authority is for these mandates/laws.....

Re:And now..

[mysidia]

I'm not sure how I see this falling into the interstate commerce clause? I mean, a person works in his state....money paid to him in a state in which he is responsible for state taxes, etc.

Internet social networking sites have a multi-state presence; the federal government has long claimed to have the jurisdiction over regulation of telecommunications services, see FCC. In Facebook's case, it's a terms of use violation to share your password.

They are essentially passing legislation that forbids employers from interfering with citizens' private relationship with certain other companies.

The legislation is broken though, because it's specific to social networking. This should apply to all sites.

Including online banking sites, and sites where you pay your utility bills. This is a form of consumer protection and privacy protection for interstate commerce.

Your private dealings are not your employer's business.

Your employer has no business seeing who your friends are, who your banks are, what your account balances are, which cable package you subscribe, to, what book you ordered from Barnes and Noble or Amazon, what your viewing history is on Youtube and Netflix, etc.

And if some of employers are trying to pry anyways and demand passwords to personal accounts their company has no right to, then it certainly is the feds' job to reign in the abuse.

10 Amendment

[misfit815]

How is this the domain of the United States Congress?

Re:10 Amendment

[Anonymous Coward]

Business practices that seem to want to coerce people to provide information they normally would not do for their job, or to actively violate laws (e.g., federal laws that prohibit, at least in letter, sharing of passwords for online resources) in order to interview for a job, things like that? You know, laws that the Congress passed in the first place?

Shouldn't take too much lobbying by US Chamber of Commerce, et al, to make sure this bill doesn't even make it out of committee or otherwise dies a quiet procedural death. But, because it's sponsored by (D)'s, even if it did make it to the floors, it's going to be voted down just because.

Re:10 Amendment

[JoshuaZ]

Interstate commerce, covered in Article I of the Constitution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Commerce_Clause. The websites in question are large sprawling entities like Facebook which have people in all states and have offices in multiple states. Once that's a common setup, regulation is almost certainly Constitutional. And even when websites are all in one state, packets and the like go very far afield. There might be an argument that they can't regulate an in-state employer wanting a password from a completely in-state website, but that case is both unlikely to come up, and even if it did, courts would likely consider that to be a a weak argument.

Re:10 Amendment

[Gimbal]

There's a commentary on the Constitutional support of right to privacy at U Missouri KC (and that, I had not expected, but hey, score one for democratic discourse)

If corporations are people

[flaming error]

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.

Re:If corporations are people

[SeaFox]

That's what happens when you have...

1. (Relatively) high unemployment.

2. A government that is pro-business and anti-employee rights for years and years.

3. Companies more and more feeling what an employee does on their personal time is their business because "it might reflect badly on the company".

Re:If corporations are people

[Concerned Onlooker]

What about when they ask for Slashdot account info? You may not think you're participating in social media, but you are.

Re:Really?

[mark-t]

Yes, it actually happened

No, it's not. See above

Unfortunately not yet. But there could be soon.

Re:Doesn't matter.

[bky1701]

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.

Re:The 4th isn't enough?

[KiahZero]

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).

The 4th isn't enough!

[DragonWriter]

I would have thought the 4th amendment would have covered this

You would have thought wrong, since the 4th Amendment imposes no restrictions on private conduct.

Re:Here's an idea

[bky1701]

"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.

Re:Doesn't matter.

[mysidia]

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.