Asking job applicants to hand over Facebook login information would...
Asking job applicants to hand over Facebook login information would be prohibited under legislation to be introduced by Sens. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., they said, following media reports the practice is widespread among some employers. They asked…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
the Justice Department and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for legal opinions to “determine what protections currently exist and what additional protections are necessary” to safeguard applicant and employee privacy on social networking sites, the senators said Sunday (http://xrl.us/bmzk4o). In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, they said asking for login information and then accessing an applicant’s private information “may be unduly coercive and therefore constitute unauthorized access” under the Stored Communications Act and Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Two courts, including the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, have ruled that supervisors can face civil liability under the SCA by requesting logins and then accessing employees’ private information, they told Holder: “The courts’ reasoning does not clearly distinguish between employees and applicants.” In a letter to Jacqueline Berrien, chairman of the EEOC, the senators said private social network information -- “religious views, national origin, family history, gender, marital status and age” -- accessed by an employer “may be impermissible to consider when making hiring decisions” and could be used to “unlawfully discriminate against otherwise qualified applicants.” Asking for such information directly would violate federal anti-discrimination law, and “under the guise of a background check may simply be a pretext for discrimination,” Blumenthal and Schumer said. “Employers have no right to ask job applicants for their house keys or to read their diaries,” Schumer said in a joint statement with Blumenthal. “Why should they be able to ... gain unwarranted access to a trove of private information about what we like, what messages we send to people, or who we are friends with?” said Schumer. The senators’ planned legislation would “fill any gaps in federal law” that allow employers to ask for such information, they said.