Tuesday, February 22, 2011
More on Facebook & Privacy
I wanted to point you in the direction of this article on Salon: Government Employer asks man for Facebook Login during Job Interview. Read it and consider the following: When does a background check become an invasion of privacy? What would you do if an employer asked for your login and password for your Facebook account? For your email account?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I think this is a total invasion of privacy. I don't think employers should be able to ask for your Facebook login. I think in this situation a background check for a government job is enough. I don't think it is appropriate to have access to all his private conversations and family pictures from Facebook.
ReplyDeleteBut, if I was in this situation and it was between another candidate and myself... I would give them my password. I don't have anything to hide, I would be insulted but, I would supply my login to get the job.
I absolutely think that this is a breach of privacy. I would let my employer look through my facebook but for them to have access to personal messages-that’s like having access to email.
ReplyDeleteI think that if it was a competitive position I may give the information but I would want to agree that this would not happen in the future.
I completely agree with everyone above me. This is a total breach of privacy, and i think it is ridiculous that any job would demand your facebook login. I can understand a employers concern when potentially hiring someone, however having full access to someone's facebook is going a way to far. I believe a persons personal life and work should be kept completely separate. One is hired by a company for the ability they possess to get the job done not by who their hanging out with and where they are going on weekends. I fear that if this becomes a new trend with employers that it will lead to a very slippery slope. How long will it be until they demand you to under go surveillance into order to get a job?
ReplyDeleteIn fact, I heard someone compare this to the employer asking for the key to your house. We have talked a bit in class about how social media often forces us to redefine various concepts. This is a great example of people/institutions/corporations negotiating the redefinition of privacy.
ReplyDeletePS: I am quite surprised at those who would handover their login information, particularly after such a vehement agreement to privacy invasion. Would love to talk about this more in class!
ReplyDeleteThis article raises all sorts of questions in my mind. First of all, what happened to the concept of your work life being separate from your personal life? Second of all, and branching off of that, how does this facilitate forms of discriminatory profiling? Say for example, I'm really liberal and my potential employer is really conservative. This may have nothing to do with my job performance but will it affect his/her decision to hire me?
ReplyDeleteThis seems like an outrageous and unnecessary violation of privacy.
i dont think any employee should be forced ti hand over any private information such as passwords and log in information. People have been getting hired long before facebook or myspace was even an idea. If a company wants to search out a potential employee on facebook then thats fine but it should not be necessary to hand over private passwords and log in information to private accounts. Giving an employer a private password and account info is clearly a violation of privacy. The only situation that i would agree to hand over my private information to a government employer would only be if that Government job was working for the CIA or FBI then it is totally necessary for them to know all about who they are hiring so no potential security thread can be breached. Other then that i would not hand over that information.
ReplyDelete