ACLU: Facebook password isn't your boss' business
According to Doug Gross of CNN, the American Civil Liberties Union is finding more and more that employers are requesting access to their job applicants' social media accounts such as their Facebook. Gross published this article on March 22nd informing people that some companies are requiring that applicants give their passwords, or they must add people from the company as a friend. Employers believe they have the right to look through messages, pictures and posts on an applicant’s wall. This to many people is view such actions as a violation of personal privacy. It is also a violation of Facebook's Terms of Service. Some lawmakers are considering banning employers from being allowed to violate people’s privacy. After reading Gross’ ACLU: Facebook password isn't your boss' business article I was in shock. Throughout the past decades the chances of earning a job have become more and more difficult. Expectations have gotten more specific. Most employers are worried about an applicant’s past and education, which is very understandable. Now employers are beginning to believe they should have the right to snoop through their applicant’s Facebook’s. Some have required that the applicant request them as a friend on Facebook, which is also understandable; but some employers think that they have the right to know an applicant’s password so that they can log on to their account and go in and look through their personal things. This is appalling to me, not only does it cross a line between a person’s personal life and their privacy but it violates the Facebook’s Terms of Service. At some point there has to be a line drawn where it keeps an applicant’s personal life separate from their work life. If a person is a good worker and never does anything wrong then they should be left alone, there is no need to be snooping through their personal life because it does not have much to do with their work. I would like to see a law passed by legislation securing applicant’s privacy rights.
This shouldn't even be a question of opinion, it's wrong period. Not everything posted on the internet is meant to be public, Facebook/MySpace..etc, are social accounts for YOUR PERSONAL friends and only open to those people that YOU want to share with. That most people don't know how to set these things up and that their comments and photos are easily "googled" by anyone is a whole different issue, not a right to anyone accessing your stuff online. The credit score thing was bad enough, now access to your online accounts? Seriously? Okay, I need everyone's LinkedIn, Hotmail, Yahoo, Google, Twitter, blah blah blah accounts ID's and passwords... wow, seriously.
ReplyDeleteWhen people start rebelling and routinely lying to employers.....employers will have nobody to blame but themselves. If they want to abuse their positions in the marketplace, they deserve what they get. We need to think like attorneys instead of letting them walk all over our dignity - answer questions with an absolute minimum of information.