12 Employers & Facebook

You're at a big job interview and your future boss asks you for your Facebook password and login name, what do you do? What if future boss at your dream job asks you to sign into your Facebook and wants to shoulder surf?

With the growth in popularity of social media sites, employers have elected to get on the bandwagon – but not in the way you might think.  Many employers are now searching Facebook and other social media sites to find out information about their current and prospective employees. Is that a good thing?  Many users of these sites think not.

Since the rise of social networking, it has become common for managers to review publicly available Facebook profiles, Twitter accounts and other sites to learn more about job candidates. Most employers say that this helps both them and the applicant by ensuring there is a good fit between the company’s culture and its employees.  Searching existing employee’s on line postings also helps employers become of aware of potential problem employees advocate or engage in activities that could prove embarrassing to their employer. Once employed, some workers have been required to sign non-disparagement agreements that ban them from talking negatively about an employer on social media.

But many users, especially on Facebook, have their profiles set to private, making them available only to selected people. This has prompted some employers to demand passwords. In their efforts to vet applicants, some companies and government agencies are going beyond merely glancing at a person’s social networking profiles and instead asking employees for their Facebook password, and the employer logs into their employee’s Facebook account. This is much more prevalent amount public agencies. See http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamespoulos/2012/03/22/employers-demanding-facebook-passwords-arent-making-any-friends/

While applicants and employees can opt out of providing this information, doing so will likely have significant consequences.  Given today’s tight labor market it takes a highly self-confident person to opt out.  Consequently many social media users find this latest push by employers as overreaching.  Orin Kerr of the Volokh crew makes an intuitive comparison, describing this “egregious privacy violation” as tantamount to demanding an applicant’s house keys. See http://finance.yahoo.com/news/job-seekers-getting-asked-facebook-080920368.html

Less we think passing a few laws will solve the problem, “companies that don't ask for passwords have taken other steps — such as asking applicants to friend human resource managers or to log into [Facebook] a company computer during an interview.” (quote from news article link above) I actually had a personal experience with this, I had a friend on Facebook that I met him in person but he was more of an acquaintance. A year later I was hired at a place where he was the manager. Once he became someone I work with, since I’m a strong believer in separation between work life and private live, I put him in my Facebook’s “co-worker” friend list, which greatly limits what you can see on my Facebook page. A week or so later I had difficulty getting hours in where I worked and then three weeks later after struggling to get scheduled I was let go without an exact reason as to why, though I had my suspicions.

You might of heard in the news of people getting fired over Facebook before, but those were because they were talking trash about the company they work for or their boss but most of those cases the employee’s had their profile settings completely set as public, those employees were being reckless. What exactly are employers going to do with this information? Under existing laws, many pieces of personal information on a social media site cannot be used as a basis of employment decisions (things that fall under anti-discrimination laws like religion or political views) – so why does an employer want this information anyway? Most employers will do background checks to find out if prospective employees are sex offenders, thieves, etc. Most people that have a negative background check don’t put that they are a convicted felon on their Facebook page. Only dumb, proud, or people that don’t care put such things about themselves on their profile.  (3)

There’s a difference between hiring managers asking for password and username verses asking for you to login and let them shoulder surf. Giving your login information of your Facebook account is actually a violation of Facebook’s Terms and Conditions of using their services (Topic 4 Registration and Account Security rule 8 http://www.facebook.com/legal/terms). Either way allowing people other than yourself access to your Facebook page doesn’t just put you at risk but all your friends on your Facebook account who allowed you and only you to see their Facebook page and it would be easy for that other person to talk to friends posing as you. But allowing hiring managers to shoulder surf is a slippery slope currently it seems that the law allows hiring managers to ask for such invasion of privacy. You are under no obligation to give your password or show your full Facebook page and have the complete right to reuse when asked but at the same time if you don’t get hired it would be very difficult to prove you were not hired because of discrimination, refusing to give your password isn’t covered in discrimination.

 But, there’s a huge difference between a hiring manager asking prospective employees these questions verses managers and bosses asking these questions to people who are already an employee. If you are already employee and asked one of these questions or if you gave your login information for the job interview and your boss continues to access your Facebook account after you’re already hired without telling you the legal situation is completely different and there are laws that protect you. To add more confusion to the matter the labor laws and laws on privacy are different from state to state, especially if the state is or isn’t “right to work state.” States that are not a right to work state mean that you can only be fired for a reasonable reason and states that are a right to work you can be fired without a given reason.
 

(A map of right to work states from http://missouri.watchdog.org/12877/right-to-work-debate-heats-up-in-missouri/)
Questions have been raised about the legality of the practice, which is also the focus of proposed legislation in Illinois and Maryland that would forbid public agencies from asking for access to social networks.  “Paula Whelan, an employment partner at Shakespeares law firm, said there was nothing to stop employers from asking for logins into social media. However, ‘prospective employees have every right to say 'no' as it is a request to access personal information and has nothing to do with somebody’s capability to do a job. And I cannot see any reason why a boss could not at least ask the question as there is nothing they can do to force an interviewee to hand over their Facebook login,’” she explained. (quote from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/9162356/Facebook-passwords-fair-game-in-job-interviews.html )

Until laws are passed to project prospective employee’s privacy these instances will be on the rise I recommend that you prepare for them by lying that you don’t have a Facebook account, or editing your entire Facebook page to be employer friendly, or just deleting your Facebook page. Personally I prefer these suggestions here, http://raganwald.posterous.com/i-hereby-resign , seriously read that it might guarantee you your dream job, researching your state’s labor and privacy laws or having a lawyer friend. I hope employers read that letter and realize asking people’s employee’s Facebook information is a double edge sword and what a big can of worms they’re opening.