Posts Tagged ‘ Facebook Privacy ’

Update: California Law Protects Facebook Passwords from Employers

September 28th, 2012. By

Remember that uproar not so long ago about employers asking for social media passwords? The story got a lot of press as job seekers in particular feared being caught between a rock and a hard place if a potential employer were to ask for their Facebook password. A dicey situation at best—and a privacy violation at worst.

Well, now we have some good news: California has signed two new laws relating to social media privacy protection. The first prohibits employers from asking current employees and/or job applicants for social media passwords in an attempt to get insight about the individual via social media snooping.

The second law covers off the same for current and prospective college students and student athletes at universities.

According to a Reuters report (9/27/12), California employers will now be barred from firing or taking disciplinary action against anyone who refuses to give up information related to their social media accounts.

The Reuters article goes on to share this statement from Governor Jerry Brown: “The Golden State is pioneering the social media revolution and these laws will protect all Californians from unwarranted invasions of their personal social media accounts.”

The new California social media password laws go into effect January 1, 2013.

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How to Get Outed on Facebook: Be Seen Here

August 27th, 2012. By

How it hadn’t happened earlier is a mystery, but there’s a new website in town that’ll give even the snoopiest of insurance companies or HR departments a run for their money—heck, it might even be a new resource for them. The website is WeKnowWhatYoureDoing.com.

And know they do.

Want to be outed for hating your boss and wanting to be fired? Stop by.

Want to be outed for being way the hell too hungover to show up for work? Click on over.

How ’bout being outed for taking drugs? Gotcha covered.

Oh, and you’re also outed on WeKnowWhatYoureDoing.com if you’ve got a new phone number. Nice to know.

The key here is that YOU do not have to actually sign up for the pleasure of being outed on Facebook—you merely have to post something (something rather stupid I might mention) and not be too up on your Facebook privacy settings, and—Voila!—you may well show up on the site.

You may be sitting there saying, “Gosh, isn’t that like some sort of internet privacy issue? Aren’t they doing something illegal?”

Well, not exactly.

A little unkind, perhaps—but YOU’VE put the post about your prior night’s transgressions out there publicly for everyone to access, right? Not smart.

Here’s an excerpt on what WeKnowWhatYoureDoing.com has to say about things:

How does it Work? It simply queries Facebook’s Graph API and outputs the results. There is nothing on this website that cannot be accessed by anyone else.

Note also the site’s disclaimer (to see full disclaimer, visit the site):

Disclaimer: All data is pulled directly from Facebook, it is not censored, and it is publicly accessible via the Graph API. I cannot be held responsible for any persons actions as a result of using this experiment. Absolutely no information from any of the data providers includes, but not limited to Facebook, Foursquare, Twitter, Yahoo, or Google is being collected or stored.

Hmm. Now may be a good time to head over to Facebook and make sure your privacy settings aren’t set to “Public”.

Oh, and WeKnowWhatYoureDoing.com even tells you how to do that:

Just go to https://www.facebook.com/settings/?tab=privacy and make sure Control Your Default Privacy is not set to “Public”. You can set it to “Friends” but for the best privacy it is recommended you choose “Custom” and go through each option to choose who can see what.

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Would you Hand Over your Facebook Password on a Job Interview?

March 21st, 2012. By

You’ve made it to the interview stage—congratulations! Now fork over your Facebook login and password.

Would you do it?

If you really wanted the job, chances are you would. But is it right? Or is it an invasion of privacy? Many would say it’s cause for a Facebook privacy lawsuit.

Being asked for your Facebook password is becoming more commonplace as part of the job interview process. Apparently, for the recruiters, it’s the modern day version of a background check, work history and reference check all wrapped up in one. Unfortunately, even innocent posts—or those times you’ve been tagged in friends’ photos—are up for interpretation by the hiring manager or HR person. Beer in hand? Maybe you party too much. And let’s not even talk about those more ‘viewer discretion advised’ posts—or worse.

For job applicants, however, it’s sort of like finding bed bugs in your hotel bed—completely uninvited and unwanted, but you need the darn bed to get some sleep. What to do? Chances are, you ask for another room or find another hotel–but in this job market, other jobs aren’t as easy to come by as a new hotel room.

If ever there were a doubt that employment recruiters and HR professionals are trolling online for dirt on prospective hires, just listen to this:

A recent survey done by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) found that 56 percent of HR pros admit to using social media sites for recruiting; 95 percent say they use LinkedIn; and 58 percent use Facebook.

And while most web-savvier folks correlate LinkedIn with “job search mecca”, many job seekers don’t even know LinkedIn exists. But they know Facebook does. And recruiters know this. So, particularly when targeting non-executive positions, Facebook becomes a go-to source for a wealth of information—supplemental information that otherwise may not bubble up in the interview or reference check process.

But, if a Facebook account is private, well, that little ol’ login and password are needed. And who better to ask for it than the person who created it? And, what better time to ask them for it than when they’re sitting anxiously across the desk from you during their job interview?

In any other setting, most people would withhold such information; after all, isn’t Facebook for connecting with ‘friends’? And for most, it’ll be a cold day in h#ll before they include their HR manager in their circle of FB friends. (Notwithstanding that recent article about Facebook narcissism based on the number of friends you have.)

So handing over a Facebook password would appear to be something you’d only do under duress; you’d only be compelled (coerced?) to provide such information if you felt you HAD to do so—as would be the case if you thought a possible job were on the line.

A recent Associated Press article quotes George Washington University law professor, Orin Kerr, as likening the situation to “requiring someone’s house keys” for the interview. Kerr goes on to call it an “egregious privacy violation”.

And it is. After all, when you consider that an interviewer is not supposed to ask questions about age, marital status, children or health concerns, how is it that the same interviewer should potentially have access to all such information by asking for your Facebook password? Something isn’t right there.

Undoubtedly, we’ll be seeing more Facebook privacy lawsuits sprouting up. But in the meantime, here’s a tip: if you’re job hunting, get a LinkedIn profile. Anything and everything a prospective employer should want or need to know about you can be housed there. Even the professional ‘company you keep’—and linking in with an HR rep is surely less creepy on LinkedIn than on Facebook. Any other information about you can be found via the less intrusive methods: background check, reference checks, drug testing…the usual suspects.

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Posted in Emerging Issues, Employment, Internet/E-commerce | 2 Comments »

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