Slashdot Mirror
California Employers Can't Ask For Your Facebook Password
J053 sends word that California has passed legislation making it illegal for both colleges and employers to request social media account access from students, employees, and prospective hires.
"Assemblymember Nora Campos, who authored the bill, called AB 1844 a 'preemptive measure' that will offer guidelines to the accessibility of private information behind what she calls the 'social media wall.' ... According to Campos' office, more than 100 cases currently before the National Labor Relations Board involve employer workplace policies around social media. Facebook has also said it has experienced an increase in reports of employers seeking to gain 'inappropriate access' to people's Facebook profiles or private information."
Privacy is not dead, it's just losing the war.
Take arms and fight back!
If a business I worked for or was interviewing at asked me for my passwords to anything not work related, I wouldn't be working there anymore.
Really, I live in a (arguably) much less "free" country and I couldn't imagine anyone would ask something like this as a requirement for hiring.
What kind of idiot asks this?, what kind of idiot accept it?
FB users make a legally binding agreement not to share their passwords as part of the ToS for having a FB account.
The federal version was voted down in the House by the Republicans.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/27/facebook-password-protection-amendment-congress_n_1384045.html
This space for rent.
What I don't understand is why employers even think this is reasonable. Yes, yes, I know, corporations bad, but corporations are still made up of humans and you would think some of those humans would understand that this is overreaching into people's private lives.
I don't see what someone's social media accounts have to do with their ability to work. Sure, they may party hard, or bad mouth their employers, but it's not exactly uncommon and it's not going to stop just because people don't put that on their FB account.
I suppose I am not surprised that someone would try this, what I am more surprised about is that they have gotten this far with it. Forcing people to turn over personal information should be something that a corporate legal department knows is going to get them in legal hot water.
The celebration over AB 1844 is premature. Governor Brown has not yet signed it.
And if they actually agreed, I wouldn't hire them (and I wouldn't actually let them give it to me). If they can be so easily coerced into sharing confidential information and giving up their rights, they don't have the backbone I expect in my employees.
Now, in my job people are given significant authority and responsibility that needs to be safeguarded, so that's a real concern. In other jobs maybe that's not a criteria for hiring decisions.
MadCow.
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
It needs to forbid not just asking for passwords from the candidate, but asking for any kind of access in excess of what an ordinary member of the public would have from anyone (the candidate, the social media site, associates of the candidate, etc.). No requiring the candidate to let you watch him viewing his profile. No asking the social media site to grant you behind-the-scenes access to candidate's profiles. No asking friends of the candidate to let you watch them view the candidate's profile. No special access, period. If the candidate is keeping it from public view, as an employer you don't get special privileges to bypass that.
But if the candidate's dumb enough to leave it open to the general public, it's fair game. Ditto if his friends post things about him and identify him in them. Though if you trust things other people say about him and they turn out to be false you don't get to avoid any liability that'd attach to that either, so you may not want to go trusting the unsubstantiated word of random people you find on the Internet.
this is why we need unions.
corporations were being somewhat tolerable after the union days, 50-100 yrs or so ago. things go measurably better; pretty much for all of society.
we have fallen backward, though; and we need to restart the fight for employee rights.
if the republicans have their way, they'll make us all slaves. we cannot allow this trend to continue. please! this is breaking the backs of the working man.
just another example of unrestrained corp power over the common man.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
When many people live in states with no right to work the employer can easily let you go and make up a reason to get you denied unemployment.
As many do, you are confusing 'right to work' with 'at will'.
Right to work involves not being forced into a union as a condition of employment at a certain place.
At will mean a) they can fire you, just because, and b) you can quit, just because.
This, if you don't own a facebook account nowadays, you're clearly a terrorist pedophile serial killer mime who hates freedom.
...I figure yet another reason not to have a Facebook account....bypasses the problem (and many other privacy issues) entirely.
Except not having a FB account at all is apparently reason for employers to reject you now. Seriously. http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/08/06/beware-tech-abandoners-people-without-facebook-accounts-are-suspicious/
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007