Maryland becomes first state to prohibit employers from asking for Facebook logins
4:33 pm - 05/03/2012
Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley has signed legislation banning employers in the state from requiring workers and prospective employees to disclose their user names and passwords to Facebook, Twitter and other personal social media accounts.
State legislators approved the bill, SB 433 (HB 964), last month, and O’Malley signed it into law Wednesday. It takes effect Oct. 1.
Maryland is the first state to pass such a law explicitly banning employers from collecting login information for employees’ password-protected accounts, and similar measures are pending in California, Illinois, Michigan and Minnesota.
Employment law experts say the move sets important limits on employers’ ability to monitor their workers’ online networks — and that of friends and family — at a time when social media plays an ever-increasing role in people’s personal and professional lives.
“It not only protects the employees’ privacy, it also protects employers from creating new legal duties and liabilities and compliance costs,” said Brad Shear, a Bethesda attorney who worked with state Sen. Ronald Young (D-Frederick) to propose the legislation. “It creates a bright line as to what employers can and can’t do.”
The law stems from an incident between former corrections officer Robert Collins and his then-employer, the state’s Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services. During a recertification interview with a supervisor, Collins was asked for his Facebook log in information. A department policy that at the time allowed supervisors to ask prospective employees for passwords to their Facebook accounts as part of a background check to screen for gang affiliations. The department suspended the practice after the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland filed a complaint on Collins’s behalf, claiming the practice violated his personal privacy.
The Maryland Chamber of Commerce opposed the bill, saying that employers “have a myriad of legitimate interests in knowing what their employees or applicants have posted about themselves,”such as making sure employees are not posting trade secrets or negative comments about customers, using illegal drugs or engaging in other inappropriate behavior.
But a spokesperson for the business group said Thursday they will move forward helping employers comply with the new law.
“The law is the law,” said spokesperson Will Burns. “At this point, our goal is to ensure that all businesses know about it so they can adjust any policies that may be contrary to it.”
And here is a picture of Governor O'Malley and his band O'Malley's March performing at the White House, just because.
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State legislators approved the bill, SB 433 (HB 964), last month, and O’Malley signed it into law Wednesday. It takes effect Oct. 1.
Maryland is the first state to pass such a law explicitly banning employers from collecting login information for employees’ password-protected accounts, and similar measures are pending in California, Illinois, Michigan and Minnesota.
Employment law experts say the move sets important limits on employers’ ability to monitor their workers’ online networks — and that of friends and family — at a time when social media plays an ever-increasing role in people’s personal and professional lives.
“It not only protects the employees’ privacy, it also protects employers from creating new legal duties and liabilities and compliance costs,” said Brad Shear, a Bethesda attorney who worked with state Sen. Ronald Young (D-Frederick) to propose the legislation. “It creates a bright line as to what employers can and can’t do.”
The law stems from an incident between former corrections officer Robert Collins and his then-employer, the state’s Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services. During a recertification interview with a supervisor, Collins was asked for his Facebook log in information. A department policy that at the time allowed supervisors to ask prospective employees for passwords to their Facebook accounts as part of a background check to screen for gang affiliations. The department suspended the practice after the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland filed a complaint on Collins’s behalf, claiming the practice violated his personal privacy.
The Maryland Chamber of Commerce opposed the bill, saying that employers “have a myriad of legitimate interests in knowing what their employees or applicants have posted about themselves,”such as making sure employees are not posting trade secrets or negative comments about customers, using illegal drugs or engaging in other inappropriate behavior.
But a spokesperson for the business group said Thursday they will move forward helping employers comply with the new law.
“The law is the law,” said spokesperson Will Burns. “At this point, our goal is to ensure that all businesses know about it so they can adjust any policies that may be contrary to it.”
And here is a picture of Governor O'Malley and his band O'Malley's March performing at the White House, just because.
Source
Personally, if my facebook is PRIVATE and you can't see what I'm doing without having my permission to see, it's no different than me writing trade secrets in a notebook that my friends could pick up from my desk and read.
Either way, yay for this law.
so in this case the corporation's "rights" are more important
I have to wonder what the case would be if things were reversed, and people were required to give their account info? Would people without FB accounts (of which I am one) not be hired? Would the interviewer think they were lying? Would it have become mandatory to have an FB account to get a job?
I have to wonder what the case would be if things were reversed, and people were required to give their account info? Would people without FB accounts (of which I am one) not be hired? Would the interviewer think they were lying? Would it have become mandatory to have an FB account to get a job?
Fb accounts would double in size as people made dummy accounts. Add mom, and a few friend's dummy accounts and a lot of celebrities and you're good to go. :) ... and probably make sure you profile pic on your real one isn't of you.
Honestly, it were reversed and I would be required, there would be a rampant amount of deletes of post and N/A options.
Though, I don't know. AT some point you would just have to get stern and be all 'search, dudes, I ain't got one."
I would probably use that even for crappy Maryland news, though.Edited at 2012-05-04 03:38 pm (UTC)
I don't mind employers looking people up on Facebook or whatever, but requiring log in information is fucking skeevey.