Should Employers be able to ask for Social Media Passwords
When giving this question even the least amount of thought, it is hard to understand how this could be anything but the most unethical and disrespectful business hiring practice in some time. A prospective employer may as well ask to be allowed to monitor a prospective hire's bank account to be sure that spending habits represent an adequate measure of stability or ask the new employee to always wear a listening device on their person to make sure they never speak ill of the company.Besides that, it seems pretty obvious that such a measure is by no means something employers actually need. There are plenty of ways to restrict Internet access through a company's network to ensure that the employee can only use it for work purposes. The employer has every right to take those steps as on long the employee is on company time and being paid for it. A social media password, though, is every bit a means for spying on the employee during their off hours as the listening device mentioned in the previous paragraph would be. An employer that would ask a prospective hire to divulge that information cannot be trusted to respect the dignity and rights of the employee. Everyone needs to engage in some sort of career, both for their well being and the overall good of society, but not at the cost of their personal lives.As pointed out inthislegal question and answer web site, the law is very clear on an employee's right to privacy outside of the workplace. However, within any group - including employers - there are always going to be some that try to bend if not outright break the rules. As indicated inthisarticle, such employers have so far been able to bypass those laws since laws on social media privacy were still being developed. That is changing but until they become as common as previous laws protecting employee off hours privacy, it will still be a problem.Some employers are trying to fight back. Theyclaima need to "monitor comments about their company and its products and services." Perhaps they should simply focus on taking the usual steps most companies would take in maintaining favorable reputations - quality control of the products they sell and their perceived interaction with employees and the communities in which they are located.Some employers have brought up thematterof unauthorized e-mail as a reason for requesting social media passwords. However, that is another distraction from the real issue. Companies can set up and easily monitor their own internal e-mail systems for interoffice communication without bringing employees private lives into it.There is also the possibility of course, that an employee could be using off time to harm the company and benefit a competitor. However, that no more gives the company a right to just invade privacy at large than it allow official law enforcement agencies to use the same principle. When such incidents occur, generally the employer will have some idea just where to look for the mole. For example, the type of information being leaked to a competitor often gives a good idea where to start looking for the employee who leaked it - sales figures, information on a new product being developed, etc.Given current economic realities, it is not hard to understand why someone would agree to be employed by someone who had no qualms about asking for personal information like a social media password. That is up to the individual job seeker to decide. In the opinion of this writer however, one should certainly think twice about working for someone who did so.
