Posts Tagged Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
House bill would ban bosses from asking for Facebook passwords – The Hill’s Hillicon Valley
Posted by Michael B. Calyn in Cyber Legislation, Cyber Security on March 28, 2012
House bill would ban bosses from asking for Facebook passwords
By Brendan Sasso - 03/28/12 02:31 PM ET
Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) is drafting legislation that would ban employers from asking for their workers’ Facebook passwords, his office confirmed Wednesday.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) is planning to introduce a similar measure in the Senate.
According to recent media reports, there is a growing trend of employers demanding that job applicants provide passwords to their private Facebook accounts to check for embarrassing or damaging information.
The passwords give employers access to the users’ private messages, photos and the profiles of their friends.
Job applicants told the Associated Press earlier this month they felt they had to hand over their password or they would lose their chance at getting the job.
In a statement on Sunday, Sens. Blumenthal and Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) called the practice “disturbing” and said it “represents a grave intrusion into personal privacy.”
“A ban on these practices is necessary to stop unreasonable and unacceptable invasions of privacy,” Blumenthal said.
The senators asked the Justice Department and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to investigate whether the practice violates the law.
Ryan Minto, a spokesman for Rep. McHenry, said the congressman’s aides have been working with Blumenthal’s office to draft the legislation. Minto said Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-Colo.) is also involved in writing the bill.
“Requiring an individual to provide access to their personal social media account is an invasion of privacy, plain and simple,” Minto said. “Congressman McHenry is considering legislation to prevent this encroachment into Americans’ private lives.”
Perlmutter on Tuesday offered an amendment to a bill that would slow the ability of the Federal Communications Commission to adopt new regulations. Perlmutter’s amendment would have clarified that nothing in the bill would limit the FCC’s power to adopt rules banning employers from asking for passwords to Facebook or other social media sites.
“No American should have to provide their confidential personal passwords as a condition of employment,” Perlmutter said in a statement.
The House voted down Perlmutter’s amendment at the urging of Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.), the author of the underlying FCC reform bill.
Walden worried that the last-minute amendment would give the FCC too much power to regulate online privacy and said he wished that Perlmutter had brought up the issue earlier.
In a blog post last week, Facebook condemned employers who pressure people to hand over their passwords.
“If you are a Facebook user, you should never have to share your password, let anyone access your account, or do anything that might jeopardize the security of your account or violate the privacy of your friends,” said Erin Egan, Facebook’s chief privacy officer for policy.
House bill would ban bosses from asking for Facebook passwords – The Hill’s Hillicon Valley.
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Senators Want Employers’ Facebook Password Requests Reviewed – NYTimes.com
Posted by Michael B. Calyn in Cyber Security, Jobs, Legal, Privacy on March 26, 2012
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.
Senators Want Employers’ Facebook Password Requests Reviewed – NYTimes.com.
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- US senators: Investigate employers asking for Facebook passwords (zdnet.com)
- Senators ask feds to probe requests for passwords (news.yahoo.com)
- DOJ to log into Facebook password controversy? (foxnews.com)
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