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Employers asking for Facebook passwords

Should it be illegal for employers to ask for Facebook passwords?


  • Total voters
    35
I agree. There needs to be an employee's bill of rights that protect privacy and protect people against abuse. Electronic intrusion should be one of the things on it. I would also ban the practice of checking a potential employee's credit. Plenty of people have bad credit through no fault of their own. Getting sick in our atrocious health care system can get you bad credit. Then when you're well enough to work again, you can't get a job because your credit sucks. I would also ban "at will" work where you can get fired for any reason, good or bad. The employee bill of rights should state that an employer has to have a valid reason to fire someone such as their work is poor quality, their attendance is poor, etc. If an employer finds out a worker is a member of Democratic Socialists of America or a member of the NRA, that is NOT a valid reason to fire anyone. (If they preach and make a nuisance about it at work, that's different.) Work relationships between an employer and an employee should be about a person doing the work in a quality way. Period.

They used to ask if you belonged to any organizations which was another angle for discrimination.

Look, from experience I can say that when there is a very strong labor movement in this country employers aren't so liberal with discriminatroy practices.
 
Does an employer have a right to to put cameras in your house?

sure. for example, if you were employed to be a character in a reality TV show.

an employer does not have the right to force this, though they should have the right to make it a condition of employment.
 
It's illegal to discriminate against someone on the basis of their religion, race, etc. An employer could plausibly find that information about prospective hires by looking at their Facebook profile.

They could also find it out by LOOKING AT THEM or LISTENING to them in many cases. Are we going to no longer allow interviews face to face or via phone? Maybe we should redact names on resumes and applications also. African Americans, people from India, and Vietnamese all have distinctive names.
 
employers are stupid to do this.

but good lawks. protect us from these fools who think that because they don't like something, it should be criminal.
 
Does an employer have a right to to put cameras in your house?


No, but they can require YOUR PERMISSION as a condition of employment. Essentially the only punishment here is loss of employment (or not employing at all) A person has no RIGHT to be employed by a company.
 
No, but they can require YOUR PERMISSION as a condition of employment. Essentially the only punishment here is loss of employment (or not employing at all) A person has no RIGHT to be employed by a company.

And a company has no right to ask about an individuals private life.
 
Because the employer is a private person, e.g. any corporation.

Can a private corporation or entity monitor your phone voice mail or open your mail? No, it is a felony. Why would my private Facebook account be any different?
But private corporations can require an employee to allow them to. So, if this becomes typical you can't get a job unless you allow them to. And then they may think your lying if you don't do Facebook.


Right kind of Christian? You mean a Catholic church not wanting to hire a Protestant of something of that nature? That is not an invasion of privacy. Opening someones private messages is.
In particular I mean an engineering company that is dominated by certain evangelicals not hiring a Mormon or atheist.
 
They could also find it out by LOOKING AT THEM

Not always. If a person has olive-colored skin and a neutral-sounding accent/name, there are many ethnicities they could plausibly be...Italian, Mexican, Egyptian, Persian, Indian. But if you view their Facebook profile and see that they're a fan/member of La Raza or UNICO, you're probably going to have a much better idea of their ethnicity.

or LISTENING to them in many cases.

If for some reason they mention their race or their religion on their own in the course of conversation, then they improperly volunteered that information and typically will not have a lawsuit if you don't hire them. In this case, the employer is the one who asked to view their Facebook profile, and so they can't claim that the applicant improperly volunteered that information.

Are we going to no longer allow interviews face to face or via phone? Maybe we should redact names on resumes and applications also. African Americans, people from India, and Vietnamese all have distinctive names.

There is a difference between providing the employer with basic things they need to communicate directly with you (e.g. your name, your presence or telepresence at an interview, etc.) Scouring their Facebook profile would be more akin to asking the employee "Are you a member of a synagogue?" or "Are you a member of the NAACP?" and then not hiring them if they say yes. Those questions would be improper, and the applicant would have a very strong case that they were discriminated against.
 
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Not always. If a person has olive-colored skin and a neutral-sounding accent/name, there are many ethnicities they could plausibly be...Italian, Mexican, Egyptian, Persian, Indian. But if you view their Facebook profile and see that they're a fan/member of La Raza or UNICO, you're probably going to have a much better idea of their ethnicity.
If for some reason they mention their race or their religion on their own in the course of conversation, then they improperly volunteered that information and typically will not have a lawsuit if you don't hire them. In this case, the employer is the one who asked to view their Facebook profile, and so they can't claim that the applicant improperly volunteered that information.
There is a difference between providing the employer with basic things they need to communicate directly with you (e.g. your name, your presence or telepresence at an interview, etc.) Scouring their Facebook profile would be more akin to asking the employee "Are you a member of a synagogue?" or "Are you a member of the NAACP?" and then not hiring them if they say yes. Those questions would be improper, and the applicant would have a very strong case that they were discriminated against.

Opening an employer to liability does not equal illegal. Just as knowing someone's affiliations doesn't automatically equal discrimination. (contrary to the link in the OP to the resignation letter)
 
Opening an employer to liability does not equal illegal.

I mean "illegal" in the civil sense; I'm not referring to hauling them off to jail for doing it. My question was whether potential/current employees should have the right to sue an employer who asks to snoop around their Facebook, just as they can if an employer asks if they're a member of a synagogue.

Just as knowing someone's affiliations doesn't automatically equal discrimination.

I think an employee would have a pretty strong case for discrimination if the employer made disclosure of their religious or ethnic affiliations a condition for employment. If the employer flat-out asked an applicant if they were a member of a synagogue, then refused to hire them after they said yes, I doubt any judge would look too favorably on it. Yet you can glean that same information from someone's Facebook profile in many cases.
 
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Who owns companies?

Ownership can be highly varied from a sole proprietorship to a partnership and various other derivatives.


No one can own a individual.
 
Ownership can be highly varied from a sole proprietorship to a partnership and various other derivatives.


No one can own a individual.

It boils down to a person hiring a person. A business has rights associated with the owner. An owner has to have the right to fire people. The owner grants a person the privilege of allowing them on his property to perform a service for him. He can (or should be able) at anytime revoke the privilege to come on his property. In the current situation the owner stated he will grant the employee the privilege of employment if the employee grant him the privilege of a looksey into the facebook account.
 
It should be illegal in all forms, pass new legislation as soon as possible. But really if an employer asked me to give them a facebook password I would just erase the thing temporarily.
 
Somebody asks me for a password to anything personal like that, and I'm going to respond accordingly:

yao-ming-meme.jpg
 
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It should be illegal in all forms, pass new legislation as soon as possible. But really if an employer asked me to give them a facebook password I would just erase the thing temporarily.

Like for the logic of erasing it. Not for the laws against it.
 
As some of you may have heard, some employers are starting to ask their employees or potential employees for their Facebook passwords, in order to "do a background check" on them. Some have implemented this practice as a condition for employment, a condition for promotion, or even as a condition to not be fired. Obviously this is a huge invasion of privacy, but it also seems to walk a very fine line when it comes to existing anti-discrimination laws. If a potential employer browsed someone's Facebook, they could find out a lot more than their drinking habits...they could reasonably be expected to find out the person's religion, race, sexual orientation, whether they are expecting a child, what their political views on unions are, etc.

Is this really a road that we should go down? Do we need legislation preventing this? What happens if an employer views someone's Facebook, sees that they're a member of a group typically associated with a certain race (e.g. NAACP or ADL or La Raza), and then decides not to hire them? Who knows if that was the actual reason they weren't hired, but I think the person could reasonably make the claim that they were discriminated against.

And here is a great resignation letter from a man who had to ask potential employees for their Facebook passwords before he could hire them: I hereby resign - raganwald's posterous
I completely agree with you. Facebook is not just another place to socialize, it's a window to the soul -- like a journal. The person who thought up this little piece of privacy invasion, should be shot.
 
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I completely agree with you. Facebook is not just another place to socialize, it's a window to the soul -- like a journal. The person who thought up this little piece of privacy invasion, should be shot.

I disagree. If an employer looked at my facebook account, all he would find out is that I love Judas Priest, I talk a lot of ****, I love my firearms, and that I'm probably an alcoholic. I live in Texas, so it's all good.
 
I disagree. If an employer looked at my facebook account, all he would find out is that I love Judas Priest, I talk a lot of ****, I love my firearms, and that I'm probably an alcoholic. I live in Texas, so it's all good.
But that's your Facebook experience. It's a whole lot more for others.
 
But that's your Facebook experience. It's a whole lot more for others.

I happen to think it's stupid to bear ones soul for all to see on the internet. You're just going to get trolled, and be called a "fag" in most cases. The internet is unrelenting in its judgment.
 
My facebook profile would just show that I'm old and have lots of grandkids and great-grandkids I adore... however, that is none of a potential employer's business. We need a law that clearly states that this is an invasion of privacy.

If my profile is set to be public, I put material on my wall that reflects negatively on my employable and the company researches FaceBook (or other social networking sites) and finds it, that is my bad. However, to compel me to give my password to an employer so they can access information I have set not to be available to everyone is every bit as unconstitutional as demanding a key to my house to look around.
 
Hell, this should be illegal for no other reason than they will find out extremely personal information about other people, friends and family. The idea is ridiculous.
 
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