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| MD bans employers from asking for Facebook passwords |
| By washingtonexaminer.com - Ben Giles |
| Published: 05/03/2012 |
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ANNAPOLIS - Gov. Martin O'Malley signed legislation Wednesday that makes Maryland the first state to ban employers from asking job applicants or workers to hand over log-in information for Facebook and other social media sites. Sen. Ronald Young, D-Frederick and Washington, said he introduced the bill after hearing stories of job applicants who feared they wouldn't get a position unless they handed over their user names and passwords. "My immediate reaction was that it's unconstitutional and it's wrong," Young said. "It's like asking to go into your house and read your mail and listen to your phone calls." Internet privacy advocates say the law is crucial to protecting employees from punishment if they refuse to turn over their private social web presence. "On the one hand, and this is what jumps out to most people, it just seems like an egregious violation of privacy. People do all sorts of things on social media networks like Facebook," said David Jacobs, consumer protection fellow at the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington. "Allowing an employer to not just see what you've posted on Facebook to everyone else, but also comb through your information, is just problematic." Congress and California lawmakers have followed suit since the General Assembly passed the measure -- the Social Networking Online Privacy Act was recently introduced in the House, and a similar bill was introduced before the California state legislature. Virginia and D.C. lawmakers have not taken up the issue. The bill signing comes just over a year after the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services suspended its own practice of asking officers to provide login information for Facebook or other social media websites they may have used. Former corrections officer Robert Collins enlisted the ACLU's help last year when he was asked for his Facebook password during a re-certification process with the Department of Corrections. Read More. |
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