
Employers Banned From Asking For Social Media Passwords In California - iProject
http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/27/employers-banned-from-asking-for-social-media-passwords-in-california/
======
w00kie
Next time I interview someone for a position at my company, I'm going to ask
them for their Facebook password. If they give it to me, they will be
automatically disqualified from the hiring process for lack of common sense.

~~~
prophetjohn
I don't think this is much better. I wouldn't work for someone who asked me
this question, even if this were the rationale. Who knows why someone would
divulge their password. I bet there are reasons other than being completely
devoid of common sense.

Regardless, I bet that any predictive relationship between willingness to
divulge a Facebook password in an interview and the ability to perform
adequately as a software engineer is weak at best. To me, an employer who
doesn't understand that shows poor capacity for unbiased reasoning.

~~~
mortenjorck
If I were interviewing a candidate and had decided to ask this question, my
response following their reaction would be "Just kidding. We don't do that
here" followed by taking note of how concerned they initially appeared at the
question.

~~~
prophetjohn
The "just kidding" would probably need to be before I answered. If I start to
get up and walk out and then they say "no, I was just yankin' ya!" I'm going
to be really suspicious.

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simonsarris
I don't understand how it could possibly be legal in the first place since it
gives away information that they are not allowed to ask for, such as marital
status and sexual orientation.

Wouldn't it be equivalent to divulging that and so much more?

~~~
eli
IANAL, but it's actually _not_ illegal to ask about marital status. It's just
illegal to _discriminate_ based on martial status and if you ever landed in
court, you might have a tough time explaining why you asked that question if
it didn't affect the hiring decision.

Likewise asking for social media password is pretty dangerous even if it's not
specifically illegal because it opens you up to claims that you found
something on the account that revealed some protected class status.

(And, sadly, Title VII, the federal anti-discrimination law, does _not_
protect against sexual orientation. In many states it is perfectly legal to
fire people for being gay. A bill to fix this situation has been stalled in
Congress for nearly two decades.)

~~~
milesokeefe
At least in Texas, it's illegal just to ask, as long as the interviewee did
not bring the topic up.

~~~
fffggg
Can you cite the relevant Texas statute? I don't believe you are correct.

It is very common for confused employers to claim it is illegal, but as eli
described this is an oversimplification and is not actually true.

~~~
kleim
As an interviewer how would you prove during a trial that by asking these kind
of questions you were not intending to discriminate the interviewee?

~~~
fffggg
One obvious example would be if you had hired the interviewee in question. If
so, it would be awfully difficult to demonstrate discrimination against them!

Don't get me wrong, it is a very bad idea to ask these questions. But it is
not illegal, strictly speaking.

------
eli
TC implies this is the first state to pass such a law. It's already
specifically illegal in Maryland and Illinois, and laws are planned in many
other states [http://www.ncsl.org/issues-research/telecom/employer-
access-...](http://www.ncsl.org/issues-research/telecom/employer-access-to-
social-media-passwords.aspx)

------
nostromo
I was curious about how they defined "social media" and it actually seems
quite broad
([http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billHistoryClient.xh...](http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billHistoryClient.xhtml)):

"As used in this chapter, “social media” means an electronic service or
account, or electronic content, including, but not limited to, videos, still
photographs, blogs, video blogs, podcasts, instant and text messages, email,
online services or accounts, or Internet Web site profiles or locations."

~~~
simonw
"online services or accounts"

That's actually a little tricky when it comes to SaaS - if an employee set up
the PagerDuty / S3 / Basecamp / what-have-you account under their own name it
might be slightly awkward to take the account over should they leave the
company.

Not a huge deal - with discipline, those services should be set up using a
company-specific account - but it does suggest that SaaS services should make
sure they provide a "transfer this to another user" feature.

~~~
mseebach
I'm sure some lawyers will be happy to draft yet another section to your
already long and incomprehensible employment contract to deal with this
situation.

And even more happy to draw a lawsuit out for months when a disgruntled ex-
employee refuses to hand over the password for such a service with reference
to this law.

But, hey, there are several single pieces of anecdotal evidence, certainly
it's irrelevant that it's election season, so all is good.

------
perfunctory
This whole situation with facebook passwords shows the difference between the
states and Europe, imho. I have hard time imagining European companies asking
for a facebook password. Whether it's legal or not.

~~~
keithpeter
UK: Yup, this sounds absolutely planet zog. People do get themselves into
trouble through facebook, twitter and blogging (see below), but employers
don't ask for passwords, that is for sure.

<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15347868>

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2005/jan/12/books.newme...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2005/jan/12/books.newmedia)

(the chap was later re-employed)

<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19010842>

I just tell students that social media are 'public speech' and that they have
to think...

The US patents system seems pretty odd as well mind you.

~~~
vidarh
> (the chap was later re-employed)

Actually, he was offered his job back, but didn't take it up. It's unclear if
the offer was before or after he won an appeal against Waterstone's dismissal
(it is not unusual to get an offer for reinstatement but still run the
employment tribunal process to win compensation for the dismissal). But in the
meantime he'd gotten an offer from Forbidden Planet to run their blog, and
apparently reached a settlement with Waterstone's instead.

As far as I can tell, he still runs the Forbidden Planets blog (as well as his
own at <http://www.woolamaloo.org.uk/> ).

~~~
keithpeter
Yes, thanks for correction, I recollect the forbidden planet thing.

------
davidandgoliath
I'm disheartened bans like this even need to happen in the first place --
companies should really reconsider hiring anyone they'd feel like they have to
ask this sort of stuff to in the first place (Conversely, any company that ask
this sort of stuff of their teammates should be places you should avoid
working for).

~~~
ef4
I seriously doubt these bans do need to happen.

All it takes is one person to sue for discrimination because their profile
says they're gay / disabled / pregnant / a veteran / etc, and the employer has
no way of proving that wasn't the reason for passing them over.

This is the same reason smart employers will never ask you questions about
those topics in an interview. It's too hard to defend accusations of
discrimination if you happen to discover that the candidate is in a legally
protected class.

------
bencoder
Reminds me of this resignation letter.. apparently it's fictional, I
remembered it being genuine, but the point it raises is valid I believe:
<http://raganwald.posterous.com/i-hereby-resign>

~~~
raganwald
For obvious reasons, I remember that blog post very well. There was quite the
discussion about that here on HN:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3790378>

Re-reading those comments is very interesting in the context of this
legislation.

------
khuey
Watching society deal with the fallout of social media over the years ahead is
going to be interesting, if nothing else.

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mikegirouard
Wait… so this really happens?

~~~
eli
I don't think it was ever widespread, but sure, it happened in a handful of
places.

[http://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty/want-job-
pas...](http://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty/want-job-password-
please)

[http://www.govtech.com/policy-management/Montana-City-
Asks-J...](http://www.govtech.com/policy-management/Montana-City-Asks-Job-
Applicants-for.html)

~~~
ataggart
How interesting that in both of those incidents, the employer was a government
agency.

~~~
eli
Interesting point, though the I wonder if the data is a bit skewed since gov't
agencies tend to attract more lawsuits.

------
Ntrails
Wouldn't it make more sense to just send a friend request to candidates 2-3
weeks ahead of the interview?

I mean, if you want to see facebook/timeline information - that's the simplest
way (assuming they even have non-public profiles to start with). Twitter is
pretty much open season.

------
rmc
A good step forward, however it would be better to have a generic data
protection/privacy law, (like EU Data Protection Directive) that goes beyond
just "employeers asking for social media passwords"

------
makmanalp
Hey, why don't we make a list of employers who ask for social media passwords?
That'll keep them from getting decent employees for a while.

------
pbreit
How many people have actually been asked to reveal any personal password to a
prospective employer? Is it more than zero?

------
tisme
Just banned from doing it? That's way too mild. Those employer that were
caught doing this should be fined and/or disbanded. If they think they have
the right to ask for social media passwords what other rights do they think
they have? This is a very severe breach of privacy by an employer.

~~~
eurleif
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex_post_facto_law>

~~~
geon
It was already a proof of bad judgement before it became illegal.

~~~
mseebach
Bad judgement isn't illegal.

------
recoiledsnake
The federal version was voted down in the House by the Republicans.

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/27/facebook-
password-p...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/27/facebook-password-
protection-amendment-congress_n_1384045.html)

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
I wonder if that's related to their recent strategy of "don't pass anything".

~~~
anamax
They've passed more budgets and jobs bills than the Senate has. They've also
had more votes on such things than the Senate. (And no, filibusters/cloture
doesn't account for the difference.)

The Dem position was stated by Treasury Secretary Geitner - "No, we don't have
a plan. We just know that we don't like yours."

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
So they're as bad as each other then? :(

~~~
anamax
> So they're as bad as each other then? :(

Even if they're equally bad in total, they're bad in different ways and that
can matter.

------
blerrrgh
When I first heard that employers were doing this; this demanding of social
media passwords... I remember... I-- I-- I cried, I wept like some
grandmother. I wanted to tear my teeth out. I didn't know what I wanted to do!
And I want to remember it. I never want to forget it... I never want to
forget. And then I realized... like I was shot... like I was shot with a
diamond... a diamond bullet. Right through my forehead. And I thought... my
God... the genius of that! The genius! The will to do that! Perfect, genuine,
complete, crystalline, pure. And then I realized they... were stronger than
we.

Seriously. This whole idea was the brink of draconian tyranny. When things
like this started transpiring five and ten years ago, I immediately withdrew
from ALL social media websites, and vowed never to abide by real identity
demands on any social website that intended to publish it publicly.

I swore to myself that I would debate any rotten hiring goon into the ground,
if I was ever asked such a question during an interview. Not that I would even
want to stay on at such a work place, but just to see if they were smart
enough to tolerate my brand of dissent. If inflexible, I would instantly walk
out, and threaten (an empty threat) to sue.

It's not just about the invasion of privacy an and employers pervasive,
stifling surveillance of subordinates. What integrity is there to a Facebook
account? Nothing more than an e-mail address is required to create one. E-mail
addresses are free and plentiful. More e-mail addresses could potentially be
created than addresses in the entire IPv6 number space, and by corollary, so
too with social media accounts.

What recourse is there for me to prevent malicious individuals from
continually creating fake accounts in my name? Do I have endlessly deep
pockets and the spare time it takes to chase down trolls, sue for libel and
slander? But how many people have the time to spam and flood the internet with
anything they want? What's to stop even me for creating 10,000 fake accounts
in my own name? And in doing so, would I forfeit my chances at certain jobs?
What absolute twaddle.

~~~
sliverstorm
try-hard much?

