Skip to: [ search ] [ menus ] [ content ] Select style [ Aqua ] [ Citrus ] [ Fire ] [ Orange ] [ show/hide more content ]



Senator seeks to ban employers from asking Facebook passwords

It’s about time.

ALL of my full-time employment situations have been non-union, and a couple of them have required the signing of legally questionable language in documents as a condition of employment. One of them was VERY odious, essentially trapping job applicants into a “take-it-or-leave-it” situation, PRIOR to employment. At the time, I took it.

Now, employers are increasingly asking job applicants to share their “social graph” by asking the applicants to share their Facebook passwords. Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, is writing a bill to prevent employers from asking job applicants to divulge their social media passwords. (Senator Blumenthal served previously as the Attorney General of Connecticut.)

Blumenthal called the the practice an “unreasonable invasion of privacy for people seeking work.”

Blumenthal is quite right. People are increasingly under surveillance in both public and private situations, and certainly at work. The practices are increasingly degrading the human rights of the people subjected to the surveillance.

“These practices seem to be spreading, which is why federal law ought to address them,” Blumenthal told Politico. “They go beyond the borders of individual states and call for a national solution.”

Blumenthal is not alone. Similar legislation has been proposed in Maryland and Illinois. But as we have employers from state to state (and country to country) to avoid regulation in their search for cheap labor, I would have to agree with Blumenthal that regulation on the state level is not enough. Asking for another person’s password violates Facebook’s terms of service, but those terms carry questionable legal weight. Experts say that the legality of asking for such information is “fuzzy.”

The U.S. Department of Justice regards entering a social networking site in violation of the terms of service as a federal crime, but the agency has said such violations would not be prosecuted.

Isn’t THAT helpful? 😉 I wonder if it because so many federal agents might already be guilty of the practice…. :-)

Facebook has more than 800 million registered members. Mere human beings cannot imagine the uses to which the social graphs and bits of data could be put – that is why we have computers! :-) Much of the information could pose hazards for human resources, including information about ethnicity, nationality, sexual preferences, religion, and pre-existing medical conditions.

Blumenthal said, “”I am very deeply troubled by the practices that seem to be spreading voraciously around the country.”

Me, too, Senator. Me, too….

-Bill at

Cheshire Cat Photo™ – “Your Guide to California’s Wonderland™”

You can view higher-resolution photos at the Cheshire Cat Photo™ Pro Gallery on Shutterfly™, where you can also order prints and gifts decorated with the photos of your choice from the gallery. The Cheshire Cat Photo Store on Zazzle® contains a wide variety of apparel and gifts decorated with our images of California. All locations are accessible from hereLIKE Cheshire Cat Photo on Facebook here! If you don’t see what you want or would be on our email list for updates, send us an email at info@cheshirecatphoto.com.

No Comments to “Senator seeks to ban employers from asking Facebook passwords”

  (RSS feed for these comments)

InspectorWordpress has prevented 52153 attacks.
Get Adobe Flash player