New Illinois Law Protecting Social Media Rights In the Workplace

sl4shd0rk writes "Illinois (USA) Governor Pat Quinn signed a new law this week protecting employees' privacy rights concerning social media. Bill 3782 makes it illegal for an employer to request an employee's or job candidate's social network login credentials, in order to gain access to their account or profile. 'Members of the workforce should not be punished for information their employers don't legally have the right to have,' Governor Quinn said. 'As use of social media continues to expand, this new law will protect workers and their right to personal privacy.'"

Comments

Wait. What?

[SDuensin]

Illinois did something that makes sense? WTF?

Full text of the law

[sohmc]

Read the full text of the law here

At least they cited the bill number. I hate it when news outlets don't tell you the bill and have to go searching for it.

Re:Wait. What?

[Bigby]

This doesn't make sense at all. They can't ask for credentials? So they will ask to be "friended" or "circled" just to get an interview. Sucks for me, since I don't have a Facebook account and will be excluded as if I am hiding something...

Is This For Real?

[crow_t_robot]

What are these jobs that make you surrender your personal login credentials? Is this really happening? How would this ever be considered acceptable practice?

Re:Is This For Real?

[MickyTheIdiot]

When you have so many job seekers and a real unemployment up in the 12-15% range employers start to think a bunch of new things are acceptable!

This is just one of them. Another is having an unwritten policy that they won't hire anyone that is unemployed. Another is an unspoken policy that they'll make job descriptions so tight they can use H1-B visa holders. The list goes on and on.

Re:Meh.. Darwin at work..

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I would argue that their right to personal privacy is given up when they decide to broadcast information on a public international communications network.
Social networks is the worlds largest experiment in removing the safety labels on devices.

my 2c.

If the information were publicly broadcast, I wouldn't need to ask you for your credentials in order to access it, would I? Unless I'm much mistaken, the bill doesn't protect you from being axed for those public pictures of you sucking a skull bong(which can be accessed without login, or with an arbitrary set of credentials), it just prevents me from demanding your access credentials.

Re:Wait. What?

[Stirling Newberry]

Always funny with a post and it's sig contradict each other.

Re:Wait. What?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

There is arguably a difference between 'doesn't make sense' and 'will be relatively easy to evade'.

Most worker protection legislation suffers from the basic problem that there are just so many innocent-sounding reasons to get rid of someone for reasons wholly unrelated to any legally protected trait.

Whistleblowers, assorted wage/salary/time-worked accounting shenanigans, occupational hazards, harassment, and virtually anything else all fall into that category.

Trouble is, unless you've got a bold plan to achieve an enormous restructuring of the economy (at least to the point where the labor market is a seller's market, perhaps even to the point where most people aren't 'employees'(and no, the 'oh, he's an "independent contractor" because those are cheaper than employees, he just resembles an employee in all other ways'/permatemp doesn't count)), the condition of employees in your economy will be one of the greatest determinants of the welfare(and even the day-to-day freedom) of most of the population.

That makes ignoring the problem a bit... unpalatable.

Definition

[Cajun Hell]

(4) For the purposes of this subsection, "social networking website" means an Internet-based service that allows individuals to:

1. (A) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, created by the service;
2. (B) create a list of other users with whom they share a connection within the system; and
3. (C) view and navigate their list of connections and those made by others within the system.

"Social networking website" shall not include electronic mail.

Great, now I have to look up the definition of electronic mail. Is it going to be things which talk rfc822? Or it is going to be things which transmit messages between different users? (I just checked Facebook and it has some kind of messaging thing in it; would be hilarious if Facebook didn't qualify.)

I bet most sites which use logins, could be made to become social networking. Even banks, if you get creative.

I hate laws like this, which are so needlessly specific to handle ephemeral trends. Why didn't they just make it illegal to impersonate other people? Who profited by lobbying against that?

Re:Wait. What?

[thaylin]

And what about in a state like where I live, NC? Employeer "I want your facebook information" me "no" Employeer "ok you are fired" me "doh!" a lot of states are right to work states where they can fire you for nothing if they so chose to. Even if not they can find something to fire you for in no right to work states.

And if you REALLY need the job?

[sirwired]

If you are out of work, really need a job, and an employer is making an unreasonable (but still legal) demand, you are in a rather unequal bargaining position. It's all well and good to stick up for yourself if you have the luxury of turning down a new job or aborting a promising interview, but not everyone is in that position. The law levels the playing field by prohibiting employers from even asking for something they have no business getting.