Topic: Employers asking for facebook passwords?
no photo
Tue 03/27/12 08:13 AM
What do you all think about this? Should employers be able to do this and actually expect possible employees to hand over their passwords?

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/26/technology/senators-want-employers-facebook-password-requests-reviewed.html

Senators Question Employer Requests for Facebook Passwords
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: March 25, 2012

Two Democratic senators are asking Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to investigate whether employers asking for Facebook passwords during job interviews are violating federal law, their offices announced Sunday.

Troubled by reports of the practice, Senators Charles E. Schumer of New York and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut said they were calling on the Justice Department and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to begin investigations. The senators are sending letters to the heads of the agencies.

The Associated Press reported last week that some private and public agencies around the country were asking job seekers for their social media credentials. The practice has alarmed privacy advocates, but its legality remained murky.

On Friday, Facebook warned employers not to ask job applicants for their passwords, presumably so they could view applicant profiles on the site. The company threatened legal action against applications that violated its longstanding policy against sharing passwords.

A Facebook executive cautioned that if an employer discovered that a job applicant is a member of a protected group, the employer might be vulnerable to claims of discrimination if it did not hire that person.

Personal information such as gender, race, religion and age are often displayed on a Facebook profile — all details that are protected by federal employment law.

Not sharing passwords is a basic tenet of online conduct. Aside from the privacy concerns, Facebook considers the practice a security risk.

“In an age where more and more of our personal information — and our private social interactions — are online, it is vital that all individuals be allowed to determine for themselves what personal information they want to make public and protect personal information from their would-be employers. This is especially important during the job-seeking process, when all the power is on one side of the fence,” Mr. Schumer said in a statement.

Specifically, the senators want to know if the practice violates the Stored Communications Act or the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Those two acts, respectively, prohibit intentional access to electronic information without authorization and intentional access to a computer without authorization to obtain information.

The senators also want to know whether two court cases relating to supervisors asking current employees for social media credentials could be applied to job applicants.

The senators said they were writing a bill to fill in any gaps not covered by current laws.

soufiehere's photo
Tue 03/27/12 08:19 AM
If a prospective employer asked for your bank
account numbers, to check your balances, would
you give them?
Ridiculous.

It seems more to me it is about the havers and
the have not'ers.
Those with jobs are free to discriminate
and use whatever tools are at hand.
Those without are at their mercy.

Conrad_73's photo
Tue 03/27/12 08:42 AM

What do you all think about this? Should employers be able to do this and actually expect possible employees to hand over their passwords?

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/26/technology/senators-want-employers-facebook-password-requests-reviewed.html

Senators Question Employer Requests for Facebook Passwords
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: March 25, 2012

Two Democratic senators are asking Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to investigate whether employers asking for Facebook passwords during job interviews are violating federal law, their offices announced Sunday.

Troubled by reports of the practice, Senators Charles E. Schumer of New York and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut said they were calling on the Justice Department and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to begin investigations. The senators are sending letters to the heads of the agencies.

The Associated Press reported last week that some private and public agencies around the country were asking job seekers for their social media credentials. The practice has alarmed privacy advocates, but its legality remained murky.

On Friday, Facebook warned employers not to ask job applicants for their passwords, presumably so they could view applicant profiles on the site. The company threatened legal action against applications that violated its longstanding policy against sharing passwords.

A Facebook executive cautioned that if an employer discovered that a job applicant is a member of a protected group, the employer might be vulnerable to claims of discrimination if it did not hire that person.

Personal information such as gender, race, religion and age are often displayed on a Facebook profile — all details that are protected by federal employment law.

Not sharing passwords is a basic tenet of online conduct. Aside from the privacy concerns, Facebook considers the practice a security risk.

“In an age where more and more of our personal information — and our private social interactions — are online, it is vital that all individuals be allowed to determine for themselves what personal information they want to make public and protect personal information from their would-be employers. This is especially important during the job-seeking process, when all the power is on one side of the fence,” Mr. Schumer said in a statement.

Specifically, the senators want to know if the practice violates the Stored Communications Act or the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Those two acts, respectively, prohibit intentional access to electronic information without authorization and intentional access to a computer without authorization to obtain information.

The senators also want to know whether two court cases relating to supervisors asking current employees for social media credentials could be applied to job applicants.

The senators said they were writing a bill to fill in any gaps not covered by current laws.
Seems they have ran into a Brickwall!laugh

TxsGal3333's photo
Tue 03/27/12 09:06 AM
Humm why would they need your password....noway They could connect with you to find out the things they are wanting to find out..Which I would not let my boss connect with me none of their business what I do or what I like outside of my work...That is my time not for them to stick their nose into..

InvictusV's photo
Tue 03/27/12 09:10 AM

What do you all think about this? Should employers be able to do this and actually expect possible employees to hand over their passwords?

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/26/technology/senators-want-employers-facebook-password-requests-reviewed.html

Senators Question Employer Requests for Facebook Passwords
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: March 25, 2012

Two Democratic senators are asking Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to investigate whether employers asking for Facebook passwords during job interviews are violating federal law, their offices announced Sunday.

Troubled by reports of the practice, Senators Charles E. Schumer of New York and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut said they were calling on the Justice Department and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to begin investigations. The senators are sending letters to the heads of the agencies.

The Associated Press reported last week that some private and public agencies around the country were asking job seekers for their social media credentials. The practice has alarmed privacy advocates, but its legality remained murky.

On Friday, Facebook warned employers not to ask job applicants for their passwords, presumably so they could view applicant profiles on the site. The company threatened legal action against applications that violated its longstanding policy against sharing passwords.

A Facebook executive cautioned that if an employer discovered that a job applicant is a member of a protected group, the employer might be vulnerable to claims of discrimination if it did not hire that person.

Personal information such as gender, race, religion and age are often displayed on a Facebook profile — all details that are protected by federal employment law.

Not sharing passwords is a basic tenet of online conduct. Aside from the privacy concerns, Facebook considers the practice a security risk.

“In an age where more and more of our personal information — and our private social interactions — are online, it is vital that all individuals be allowed to determine for themselves what personal information they want to make public and protect personal information from their would-be employers. This is especially important during the job-seeking process, when all the power is on one side of the fence,” Mr. Schumer said in a statement.

Specifically, the senators want to know if the practice violates the Stored Communications Act or the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Those two acts, respectively, prohibit intentional access to electronic information without authorization and intentional access to a computer without authorization to obtain information.

The senators also want to know whether two court cases relating to supervisors asking current employees for social media credentials could be applied to job applicants.

The senators said they were writing a bill to fill in any gaps not covered by current laws.


and people wonder why us nuts rail on and on about why individual liberty and right to privacy is so important..


no photo
Tue 03/27/12 10:27 AM



and people wonder why us nuts rail on and on about why individual liberty and right to privacy is so important..




I can't imagine just handing over passwords just because they ask for them.

TxsGal3333's photo
Tue 03/27/12 10:59 AM




and people wonder why us nuts rail on and on about why individual liberty and right to privacy is so important..




I can't imagine just handing over passwords just because they ask for them.


I would have to loose my job over that one heck most use the same password for more then just one site.... Might as well hand them your check book or credit cards...shshshnoway

no photo
Tue 03/27/12 11:13 AM
and people wonder why us nuts rail on and on about why individual liberty and right to privacy is so important..
No doubt!

But if a potential employer asked for it, Id ask for the companies profile password, and when they said the company didn't have one id say, hey whadya know . . . neither do I.

msharmony's photo
Tue 03/27/12 11:39 AM

If a prospective employer asked for your bank
account numbers, to check your balances, would
you give them?
Ridiculous.

It seems more to me it is about the havers and
the have not'ers.
Those with jobs are free to discriminate
and use whatever tools are at hand.
Those without are at their mercy.



exactly, another way for employers to make a list of 'outsiders'

msharmony's photo
Tue 03/27/12 11:40 AM

and people wonder why us nuts rail on and on about why individual liberty and right to privacy is so important..
No doubt!

But if a potential employer asked for it, Id ask for the companies profile password, and when they said the company didn't have one id say, hey whadya know . . . neither do I.



laugh laugh

now THATS funny

drinker

Conrad_73's photo
Tue 03/27/12 11:52 AM
seems the NutBags have made it into Corporate Offices now!surprised