8 ms·

Maryland bans employers from asking for employee social media passwords

100 points by Suraj-Sun 15y ago

paulhauggis 15y ago
"no" has been replaced by laws and regulations. Nice.
- paulhauggis 15y ago
  It's true. People can't be adults and say "No", so they have to have laws passed to do it for them. It's a strange world we live in...
  - angdis 15y ago
    In theory I agree, but for people who are in a situation where jobs are not plentiful, saying "no" is not a realistic option. Unless, of course, one is willing to back-up that "no" with arbitrarily expensive legal wrangling (which also happens to blacklist the individual with other employers).
    - baddox 15y ago
      If you say "yes," it means you preferred the job to the alternative (unemployment). Like every other decision in your life, you either prefer one option or the other. I dislike the weaseling rhetoric of "I didn't really want to give up my passwords, but I had to find a job." That just means that finding a job is more important to you than keeping your passwords secret.
      - ktizo 15y ago
        I can think of a few things that count as weaseling rhetoric, but I am not sure I'd count your example as a particularly good one. The post taken as a whole, on the other hand, and I think you may be onto something.
      - mfringel 15y ago
        Your comment appears to be saying that it's morally reasonable to coerce the desperate. Allow me to explain my train of thought: Let's say that every business adopted this "your passwords or your job" policy. There will be a set of employees/applicants with enough leverage in the job market that they can say "no", and move on with life. There will also be a (much larger) set of employees and applicants that do not have that kind of leverage in the job market, and have to make a choice between their facebook password, and the freedom to starve. The former can rationally say "no". The latter rationally can't. Limiting morality to those who can afford it doesn't sit well with me. I'm completely fine with the government stepping in to mitigate the effects of undue coercion in society. Those who think that coercion only exists at the barrel of a gun, lack a certain amount of imagination.
        karzeem 15y ago
        If seeing an applicant's Facebook profile is important to employers, then the market wage for an applicant who says "yes" is higher than that of an applicant who says "no". Based on that, allowing people to say "yes", even when they're doing so for lack of another good option, lets them make more money than they would otherwise make. Banning them from saying "yes" prevents them from capturing that higher wage. A law that "protects" applicants from having the option to say "yes" lowers their income. Giving them the freedom to answer the question either way leaves them the choice between a higher income and the privacy of their Facebook account. It's not a happy choice, but if I valued the first more highly, I wouldn't like the government to force the second on me.
        sophacles 15y ago
        How the heck does it follow that the market wage is higher for those who say yes? What sort of mental gymnastics even get you to that point? You are making a big assertion with absolutely no evidence here, back up your statement with even a tiny fraction of a fact please. It seems infinitely more likely that employers would blanket policy everyone to give up their passwords, and every other bit of personal info period, or they wouldn't get a job.
        baddox 15y ago
      - angdis 15y ago
        No, it means that we've gotten ourselves into a situation where employers can force candidates into having to choose between being free or giving up their privacy so some asshole in HR can judge whether they are "worthy" of a job based on some ridiculous criteria that is nobody's business.
      - leot 15y ago
        So long as there is no reasonable welfare system in place, coercion is entirely possible at the bottom end of society.
      - ubernostrum 15y ago
        And this, kids, is the bridge that takes libertarianism from "force and fraud are wrong" to "but luckily there's no such thing as force or fraud when I do it".
        paulhauggis 15y ago
        It isn't force. Employees aren't slaves. They can start a business or move onto a company that doesn't ask for any of this info. This is why the majority of people starting a business, fail. Looking at the comments here, people just give up at the first sign of trouble (or need mommy and daddy government to step in and make decisions on their behalf).
        potatolicious 15y ago
        I downvoted you for blatant use of a straw man and an ad hominem attack of pretty much everyone who's disagreed with you by categorically stating that they're all looking for "mommy and daddy". > "They can start a business or move onto a company that doesn't ask for any of this info." Riiiiiiight. Because the blacks totally had that choice. And the women! And the Irish! And the Jews! It's kind of weird to me how libertarians model the world so simply - where culture doesn't exist, humans are perfectly rational actors, and all systems are 100% efficient. Real life isn't game theory.
        tzs 15y ago
        Libertarianism only seems likely to work in two cases: 1. Small societies where everyone has skills or resources that are essential to the others, or 2. Societies where everyone has resources to be self-sufficient. There may also be a requirement that the society not be in competition with outside, non-libertarian societies for necessary resources, because libertarianism is poor at handling negative externalities. A non-libertarian society has the option of careful government regulation which allows better utilization of important natural resources.
        baddox 15y ago
        You need to define your terms, namely "libertarianism" and "work." I assume you mean right-libertarianism, something like anarcho-capitalism or perhaps minarchism. By a society "working," you could mean scores of things, from maximizing personal happiness, to raising the minimum personal happiness, to maximizing average income, to maximizing socioeconomic equality, etc. Do you consider any modern or past society as "working?"
      - cooldeal 15y ago
        Do you seriously think that a Facebook account is more important than feeding your family? You may be well off to afford not to work, there are lots of people for which that is the stark choice.
        paulhauggis 15y ago
        Do you seriously think there is only one employer? There are plenty of employers that don't ask for your Facebook account info. If enough people are angry about it, the employer will be forced to stop because they won't get enough candidates.
        TeMPOraL 15y ago
        Not at the bottom end of employment ladder. For low-skill jobs there are often more candidates than open positions, so almost everyone is expendable. For example, a food store on the corner of my street can, and has many times fired a clerk only to find a replacement within a day or two. At the low end of the job market there is always someone who is younger, has less integrity and/or is willing to put up with more crap than you - so you're completely expendable.
  - ktizo 15y ago
    no. just, no. but go read this, you may find it strangely soothing. http://ifyoulikeitsomuchwhydontyougolivethere.com/ http://ifyoulikeitsomuchwhydontyougolivethere.com/
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
- loverobots 15y ago
  You can still say "NO," but when rent is due and you're down to the last pack of diapers, you cannot afford to be that brave. Real life and all
  - hippee-lee 15y ago
    You can also anticipate this with a fake account just for that purpose. Sure you can have my login, I joined a while ago but I am not very active on there.
- bishnu 15y ago
  There's a difference between "no" and a "no + no economic coercion".
  - banthar 15y ago
    Earning money usually means doing lots of hard and unpleasant things. Giving your facebook login information is hardly the worst thing employer can ask you to do. Why is it so special? How do you determine what should and what shouldn't be allowed?
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
    - bishnu 15y ago
      What if your employer wants you to steal from your family? What if your employer wants to have sex with you? You either believe labor laws should exist or you don't. If you do, I don't think the answer need to be anything more than "common sense".
      - banthar 15y ago
        > What if your employer wants you to steal from your family? Stealing should be illegal in any case. It has nothing to do with labor laws. > What if your employer wants to have sex with you? Again. If you don't like prostitution, ban prostitution. It has nothing to do with labor laws. > You either believe labor laws should exist or you don't. > If you do, I don't think the answer need to be anything more than "common sense". Those two sentences are classic logical fallacies. I can support just some labor laws and "common sense" is not an answer to anything.
angdis 15y ago
Good of them to do that and nip this practice in the bud before it has a chance to become widespread. After having just pee'd in cup last week for a pre-employment screen, I do hope that someday governments will also ban senseless and stupid drug testing for jobs that don't actually require 24/7 sobriety (eg software engineering).
- untog 15y ago
  When I moved to the US I was absolutely blown away at how common this practise is. A friend applying for a common office job had to do it- I had assumed it would only be for people handling live firearms and the like. Little did I know...
  - drucken 15y ago
    The only place I know it is routine outside of the US is in trading roles for banks. Then again, many financials are American...
- paulhauggis 15y ago
  "ban senseless and stupid drug testing for jobs that don't actually require 24/7 sobriety (eg software engineering)." It should be my right as an employer to hire anyone that I wish (just like it is your right as an employee to not accept a position or quit). You say it has no effect, but you can't tell me it has no effect on productivity, I just won't believe it (I've known too many pot heads in my life). Also, if my company required my employees to be on-call with customer support, I don't want someone under the influence of anything handling these sorts of emergencies. If you ban drug testing, employers will just hire people who they think are drug users less often and you won't really be able to prove it.
  - barrkel 15y ago
    It should be my right as an employer to hire anyone that I wish No, it is not your right; it must not be that absolute. That gives free reign to racist and other discriminatory practices, and the greater good absolutely and certainly trumps one's individual right here. The kinds of practice you are advocating here - absolute freedom on the part of employers - have had a strong part in fomenting civil war and terrorism in various places around the world. Closest to my own home, Protestant practices in Northern Ireland - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segregation_in_Northern_Ireland#Employment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segregation_in_Northern_Irelan... - and laws curbing this kind of segregation have had significant effects in reversing it. It's hard for me to express how certain I am that the real world (tm) has proven your point of view wrong here. People do kill over this.
glimcat 15y ago
Headline actually understates it. It sounds like the real deal was less microtargeted than the headline implies: according to the article, they banned "requiring or requesting employees or job applicants to disclose electronic passwords, such as for social media sites."
- seanp2k2 15y ago
  That is awesome and exactly what I was hoping would happen. Cali, you're up next (I hope!)
Karunamon 15y ago
The armchair lawyer in me would love to see someone attempt to take one of these companies to court for tortious interference with a contract - as in the one that every single Facebook user has with Facebook where they agree to not share their password.
- wmf 15y ago
  We may not like where that line of thinking leads. Should Facebook be able to stop you from installing AdBlock or privacy tools as well? What if they say you can't join Google+?
  - Karunamon 15y ago
    The difference being that Adblock or Google+ does not interact with Facebook's services. They do, on the other hand, have every valid right to determine who interacts with their service and how.
- georgemcbay 15y ago
  Another potential vector is a discrimination lawsuit. Considering how careful most companies are to avoid any interview questions that would possibly open them up to this sort of thing, I'm kind of shocked the same organizations are silly enough to ask for a Facebook password in the first place. Ask for password -> log into applicant's Facebook account -> Facebook account clearly identifies the subject as an openly gay Muslim -> applicant is denied job. Because of discrimination? Maybe, maybe not, but prying into the applicant's Facebook account certainly opens the door to it being a reasonable possibility, just the same as asking them what their race/religion/sexual orientation is in an interview would.
nirvana 15y ago
Integrity is standing on principle, even when you don't like the outcome. Thus integrity requires me to point out that in this case, Maryland is violating people's rights. While I think employers should not ask for these passwords, and don't have a "right" to, I also have the right-- freedom of association-- to not give them the password, and not work for companies that would even ask. Maryland is interfering with these rights. Maryland is violating freedom of association by dictating what terms people might choose to associate under. I doubt the Maryland constitution gives them the power to do that, and certainly many interpretations of the Bill of Rights have claimed that they restrict state's lawmaking ability. I don't know what employers might reasonably want this information. Possibly an employer might wish to conduct a background check for a highly security intensive position, and this check might involve access to some website (lets assume it is not Facebook) that the applicant feels perfectly comfortable with them seeing. Further, this access could be conducted with the employee present, with the employee changing the password immediately before giving the access and then changing it again immediately after, resulting in no ongoing access. I don't know what situation someone might find it reasonable to do this-- I can't know. But neither can the government of Maryland. The problem with these kinds of laws is that they always have unintended consequences, and at the end of the day, any violation of peoples rights-- even with "good intentions" (though I bet this law exempts the state of Maryland itself) -- will result in less optimal outcomes. For instance, consider the situation where this law is challenged and then upheld. That would establish a precedent that says the state can interfere with freedom of association, and such precedent might be used to undermine freedom of association in areas where we do care about preserving it. This has happened many times in the past-- for instance the "interstate commerce clause", which doesn't actually grant broad powers, but very narrow ones, has been rewritten via precedent to give the federal government essentially unlimited power, even where no commerce between states occurs. I expect to be down voted for expressing this unpopular opinion. But hopefully Hacker News is the kind of place where making an argument -- even if most people disagree with it-- is respected. (and I'm curious to find out, having recently seen instances of it going both ways.)
- barrkel 15y ago
  Employers usually have significant power advantages over those they employ, and they may abuse that power. In particular, discrimination for reasons of race, religion, sexuality, ethnicity, etc. is pernicious and has been a demonstrated historical problem in lots of different places all over the world. With access to a person's Facebook, a prospective employer most likely has all the information they need to act on their own prejudices. For background checks, frankly I believe a licensed, disinterested third party should perform them where they are necessary. (I downvoted you because I strongly disagreed with you. Freedom of association is a poor defense for permitting discrimination, particularly where employment is concerned, IMO.)
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
wccrawford 15y ago
I'm usually on the side of 'government, get out of my life', but this practice is unusually unfair and far too useful for the companies to think there will continue to be the option of 'work somewhere else'. Companies wouldn't dream of searching my car or house before hiring me. How they ever got the idea that they should be able to require my passwords is beyond me. Social media would not have been the last step, either. Email passwords would have been next. And then searching personal computers, especially cellphones and laptops. And once they were drunk with that power, what else would they require? "Permission" to tap your phones? That sounds ridiculous right now, but a year ago it would have been ridiculous for a company to ask for your personal passwords. And now we're having to enact laws against it. I hope other states are quick to follow on this... Or that the federal government gets their heads out of their asses and passes it nation-wide. Wasn't that the whole point of the bill of rights? To protect freedom, nation-wide?
- hippee-lee 15y ago
  It is a big deal, but no so big that we are on a slippery slope. There are many things that could happen to combat it. Employees or prospective employees agree to give up said passwords only if hiring manager/company gives them their social media account passwords. I.E - If I have nothing to hide, you have nothing to hide. You know employer an employee can never be to sure who they are working for ... An entire side industry might spring up entirely geared toward managing and tracking who sees what on your social networks or, social networks might respond by letting you set up two logins - one for safe log in that only you know and one for compromised login that you give to an employer when they compromise you. I hope that long before the states need to pass more laws like this that employees or prospective employees would publicly avoid business/government agencies asking for social media logins. "I really wanted that great job at Great Company, but it has asked me for my social media logins and stated that it would hold the things I did as a teenager against me." The public perception that it is wrong to ask an employee/prospective employee is very strong and the more negative marketing associated to an employer gets around that will not only keep other employees away but it will chip away the confidence existing employees have that they work for a good employer.
  - 15y ago
noarchy 15y ago
So how might this affect, for example, the practice of performing credit checks on prospective employees? A credit check can also reveal a lot about someone. How do we determine where the limits are?
RobertKohr 15y ago
Beyond the one fuzzy source that has been repeated my numerous media outlets, is there any evidence that this is actually going on? Any blogs where people are ranting about a specific company doing this? It seems like a lot of people are up in arms about something that may not actually be a problem.
meiji 15y ago
Do we even have the names of companies that have done it or is it just one or two and the rest is just urban whispers making it sound like everyone does it? I have, and will continue, to check people out on social networks using publicly available info but I wouldn't ask for account access any more than I would ask if I could go around to their house and read their mail. I will repeat though, information that they have placed in the public domain is fair game.

100 points by Suraj-Sun 15y ago

paulhauggis 15y ago

"no" has been replaced by laws and regulations. Nice.

paulhauggis 15y ago
It's true. People can't be adults and say "No", so they have to have laws passed to do it for them. It's a strange world we live in...
- angdis 15y ago
  In theory I agree, but for people who are in a situation where jobs are not plentiful, saying "no" is not a realistic option. Unless, of course, one is willing to back-up that "no" with arbitrarily expensive legal wrangling (which also happens to blacklist the individual with other employers).
  - baddox 15y ago
    If you say "yes," it means you preferred the job to the alternative (unemployment). Like every other decision in your life, you either prefer one option or the other. I dislike the weaseling rhetoric of "I didn't really want to give up my passwords, but I had to find a job." That just means that finding a job is more important to you than keeping your passwords secret.
    - ktizo 15y ago
      I can think of a few things that count as weaseling rhetoric, but I am not sure I'd count your example as a particularly good one. The post taken as a whole, on the other hand, and I think you may be onto something.
    - mfringel 15y ago
      Your comment appears to be saying that it's morally reasonable to coerce the desperate. Allow me to explain my train of thought: Let's say that every business adopted this "your passwords or your job" policy. There will be a set of employees/applicants with enough leverage in the job market that they can say "no", and move on with life. There will also be a (much larger) set of employees and applicants that do not have that kind of leverage in the job market, and have to make a choice between their facebook password, and the freedom to starve. The former can rationally say "no". The latter rationally can't. Limiting morality to those who can afford it doesn't sit well with me. I'm completely fine with the government stepping in to mitigate the effects of undue coercion in society. Those who think that coercion only exists at the barrel of a gun, lack a certain amount of imagination.
      - karzeem 15y ago
        If seeing an applicant's Facebook profile is important to employers, then the market wage for an applicant who says "yes" is higher than that of an applicant who says "no". Based on that, allowing people to say "yes", even when they're doing so for lack of another good option, lets them make more money than they would otherwise make. Banning them from saying "yes" prevents them from capturing that higher wage. A law that "protects" applicants from having the option to say "yes" lowers their income. Giving them the freedom to answer the question either way leaves them the choice between a higher income and the privacy of their Facebook account. It's not a happy choice, but if I valued the first more highly, I wouldn't like the government to force the second on me.
        sophacles 15y ago
        How the heck does it follow that the market wage is higher for those who say yes? What sort of mental gymnastics even get you to that point? You are making a big assertion with absolutely no evidence here, back up your statement with even a tiny fraction of a fact please. It seems infinitely more likely that employers would blanket policy everyone to give up their passwords, and every other bit of personal info period, or they wouldn't get a job.
      - baddox 15y ago
    - angdis 15y ago
      No, it means that we've gotten ourselves into a situation where employers can force candidates into having to choose between being free or giving up their privacy so some asshole in HR can judge whether they are "worthy" of a job based on some ridiculous criteria that is nobody's business.
    - leot 15y ago
      So long as there is no reasonable welfare system in place, coercion is entirely possible at the bottom end of society.
    - ubernostrum 15y ago
      And this, kids, is the bridge that takes libertarianism from "force and fraud are wrong" to "but luckily there's no such thing as force or fraud when I do it".
      - paulhauggis 15y ago
        It isn't force. Employees aren't slaves. They can start a business or move onto a company that doesn't ask for any of this info. This is why the majority of people starting a business, fail. Looking at the comments here, people just give up at the first sign of trouble (or need mommy and daddy government to step in and make decisions on their behalf).
        potatolicious 15y ago
        I downvoted you for blatant use of a straw man and an ad hominem attack of pretty much everyone who's disagreed with you by categorically stating that they're all looking for "mommy and daddy". > "They can start a business or move onto a company that doesn't ask for any of this info." Riiiiiiight. Because the blacks totally had that choice. And the women! And the Irish! And the Jews! It's kind of weird to me how libertarians model the world so simply - where culture doesn't exist, humans are perfectly rational actors, and all systems are 100% efficient. Real life isn't game theory.
      - tzs 15y ago
        Libertarianism only seems likely to work in two cases: 1. Small societies where everyone has skills or resources that are essential to the others, or 2. Societies where everyone has resources to be self-sufficient. There may also be a requirement that the society not be in competition with outside, non-libertarian societies for necessary resources, because libertarianism is poor at handling negative externalities. A non-libertarian society has the option of careful government regulation which allows better utilization of important natural resources.
        baddox 15y ago
        You need to define your terms, namely "libertarianism" and "work." I assume you mean right-libertarianism, something like anarcho-capitalism or perhaps minarchism. By a society "working," you could mean scores of things, from maximizing personal happiness, to raising the minimum personal happiness, to maximizing average income, to maximizing socioeconomic equality, etc. Do you consider any modern or past society as "working?"
    - cooldeal 15y ago
      Do you seriously think that a Facebook account is more important than feeding your family? You may be well off to afford not to work, there are lots of people for which that is the stark choice.
      - paulhauggis 15y ago
        Do you seriously think there is only one employer? There are plenty of employers that don't ask for your Facebook account info. If enough people are angry about it, the employer will be forced to stop because they won't get enough candidates.
        TeMPOraL 15y ago
        Not at the bottom end of employment ladder. For low-skill jobs there are often more candidates than open positions, so almost everyone is expendable. For example, a food store on the corner of my street can, and has many times fired a clerk only to find a replacement within a day or two. At the low end of the job market there is always someone who is younger, has less integrity and/or is willing to put up with more crap than you - so you're completely expendable.
- ktizo 15y ago
  no. just, no. but go read this, you may find it strangely soothing. http://ifyoulikeitsomuchwhydontyougolivethere.com/ http://ifyoulikeitsomuchwhydontyougolivethere.com/
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
loverobots 15y ago
You can still say "NO," but when rent is due and you're down to the last pack of diapers, you cannot afford to be that brave. Real life and all
- hippee-lee 15y ago
  You can also anticipate this with a fake account just for that purpose. Sure you can have my login, I joined a while ago but I am not very active on there.
bishnu 15y ago
There's a difference between "no" and a "no + no economic coercion".
- banthar 15y ago
  Earning money usually means doing lots of hard and unpleasant things. Giving your facebook login information is hardly the worst thing employer can ask you to do. Why is it so special? How do you determine what should and what shouldn't be allowed?
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - bishnu 15y ago
    What if your employer wants you to steal from your family? What if your employer wants to have sex with you? You either believe labor laws should exist or you don't. If you do, I don't think the answer need to be anything more than "common sense".
    - banthar 15y ago
      > What if your employer wants you to steal from your family? Stealing should be illegal in any case. It has nothing to do with labor laws. > What if your employer wants to have sex with you? Again. If you don't like prostitution, ban prostitution. It has nothing to do with labor laws. > You either believe labor laws should exist or you don't. > If you do, I don't think the answer need to be anything more than "common sense". Those two sentences are classic logical fallacies. I can support just some labor laws and "common sense" is not an answer to anything.

angdis 15y ago

Good of them to do that and nip this practice in the bud before it has a chance to become widespread. After having just pee'd in cup last week for a pre-employment screen, I do hope that someday governments will also ban senseless and stupid drug testing for jobs that don't actually require 24/7 sobriety (eg software engineering).

untog 15y ago
When I moved to the US I was absolutely blown away at how common this practise is. A friend applying for a common office job had to do it- I had assumed it would only be for people handling live firearms and the like. Little did I know...
- drucken 15y ago
  The only place I know it is routine outside of the US is in trading roles for banks. Then again, many financials are American...
paulhauggis 15y ago
"ban senseless and stupid drug testing for jobs that don't actually require 24/7 sobriety (eg software engineering)." It should be my right as an employer to hire anyone that I wish (just like it is your right as an employee to not accept a position or quit). You say it has no effect, but you can't tell me it has no effect on productivity, I just won't believe it (I've known too many pot heads in my life). Also, if my company required my employees to be on-call with customer support, I don't want someone under the influence of anything handling these sorts of emergencies. If you ban drug testing, employers will just hire people who they think are drug users less often and you won't really be able to prove it.
- barrkel 15y ago
  It should be my right as an employer to hire anyone that I wish No, it is not your right; it must not be that absolute. That gives free reign to racist and other discriminatory practices, and the greater good absolutely and certainly trumps one's individual right here. The kinds of practice you are advocating here - absolute freedom on the part of employers - have had a strong part in fomenting civil war and terrorism in various places around the world. Closest to my own home, Protestant practices in Northern Ireland - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segregation_in_Northern_Ireland#Employment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segregation_in_Northern_Irelan... - and laws curbing this kind of segregation have had significant effects in reversing it. It's hard for me to express how certain I am that the real world (tm) has proven your point of view wrong here. People do kill over this.

glimcat 15y ago

Headline actually understates it. It sounds like the real deal was less microtargeted than the headline implies: according to the article, they banned "requiring or requesting employees or job applicants to disclose electronic passwords, such as for social media sites."

seanp2k2 15y ago
That is awesome and exactly what I was hoping would happen. Cali, you're up next (I hope!)

Karunamon 15y ago

The armchair lawyer in me would love to see someone attempt to take one of these companies to court for tortious interference with a contract - as in the one that every single Facebook user has with Facebook where they agree to not share their password.

wmf 15y ago
We may not like where that line of thinking leads. Should Facebook be able to stop you from installing AdBlock or privacy tools as well? What if they say you can't join Google+?
- Karunamon 15y ago
  The difference being that Adblock or Google+ does not interact with Facebook's services. They do, on the other hand, have every valid right to determine who interacts with their service and how.
georgemcbay 15y ago
Another potential vector is a discrimination lawsuit. Considering how careful most companies are to avoid any interview questions that would possibly open them up to this sort of thing, I'm kind of shocked the same organizations are silly enough to ask for a Facebook password in the first place. Ask for password -> log into applicant's Facebook account -> Facebook account clearly identifies the subject as an openly gay Muslim -> applicant is denied job. Because of discrimination? Maybe, maybe not, but prying into the applicant's Facebook account certainly opens the door to it being a reasonable possibility, just the same as asking them what their race/religion/sexual orientation is in an interview would.

nirvana 15y ago

Integrity is standing on principle, even when you don't like the outcome. Thus integrity requires me to point out that in this case, Maryland is violating people's rights. While I think employers should not ask for these passwords, and don't have a "right" to, I also have the right-- freedom of association-- to not give them the password, and not work for companies that would even ask. Maryland is interfering with these rights. Maryland is violating freedom of association by dictating what terms people might choose to associate under. I doubt the Maryland constitution gives them the power to do that, and certainly many interpretations of the Bill of Rights have claimed that they restrict state's lawmaking ability. I don't know what employers might reasonably want this information. Possibly an employer might wish to conduct a background check for a highly security intensive position, and this check might involve access to some website (lets assume it is not Facebook) that the applicant feels perfectly comfortable with them seeing. Further, this access could be conducted with the employee present, with the employee changing the password immediately before giving the access and then changing it again immediately after, resulting in no ongoing access. I don't know what situation someone might find it reasonable to do this-- I can't know. But neither can the government of Maryland. The problem with these kinds of laws is that they always have unintended consequences, and at the end of the day, any violation of peoples rights-- even with "good intentions" (though I bet this law exempts the state of Maryland itself) -- will result in less optimal outcomes. For instance, consider the situation where this law is challenged and then upheld. That would establish a precedent that says the state can interfere with freedom of association, and such precedent might be used to undermine freedom of association in areas where we do care about preserving it. This has happened many times in the past-- for instance the "interstate commerce clause", which doesn't actually grant broad powers, but very narrow ones, has been rewritten via precedent to give the federal government essentially unlimited power, even where no commerce between states occurs. I expect to be down voted for expressing this unpopular opinion. But hopefully Hacker News is the kind of place where making an argument -- even if most people disagree with it-- is respected. (and I'm curious to find out, having recently seen instances of it going both ways.)

barrkel 15y ago
Employers usually have significant power advantages over those they employ, and they may abuse that power. In particular, discrimination for reasons of race, religion, sexuality, ethnicity, etc. is pernicious and has been a demonstrated historical problem in lots of different places all over the world. With access to a person's Facebook, a prospective employer most likely has all the information they need to act on their own prejudices. For background checks, frankly I believe a licensed, disinterested third party should perform them where they are necessary. (I downvoted you because I strongly disagreed with you. Freedom of association is a poor defense for permitting discrimination, particularly where employment is concerned, IMO.)

deleted 15y ago

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wccrawford 15y ago

I'm usually on the side of 'government, get out of my life', but this practice is unusually unfair and far too useful for the companies to think there will continue to be the option of 'work somewhere else'. Companies wouldn't dream of searching my car or house before hiring me. How they ever got the idea that they should be able to require my passwords is beyond me. Social media would not have been the last step, either. Email passwords would have been next. And then searching personal computers, especially cellphones and laptops. And once they were drunk with that power, what else would they require? "Permission" to tap your phones? That sounds ridiculous right now, but a year ago it would have been ridiculous for a company to ask for your personal passwords. And now we're having to enact laws against it. I hope other states are quick to follow on this... Or that the federal government gets their heads out of their asses and passes it nation-wide. Wasn't that the whole point of the bill of rights? To protect freedom, nation-wide?

hippee-lee 15y ago
It is a big deal, but no so big that we are on a slippery slope. There are many things that could happen to combat it. Employees or prospective employees agree to give up said passwords only if hiring manager/company gives them their social media account passwords. I.E - If I have nothing to hide, you have nothing to hide. You know employer an employee can never be to sure who they are working for ... An entire side industry might spring up entirely geared toward managing and tracking who sees what on your social networks or, social networks might respond by letting you set up two logins - one for safe log in that only you know and one for compromised login that you give to an employer when they compromise you. I hope that long before the states need to pass more laws like this that employees or prospective employees would publicly avoid business/government agencies asking for social media logins. "I really wanted that great job at Great Company, but it has asked me for my social media logins and stated that it would hold the things I did as a teenager against me." The public perception that it is wrong to ask an employee/prospective employee is very strong and the more negative marketing associated to an employer gets around that will not only keep other employees away but it will chip away the confidence existing employees have that they work for a good employer.
- 15y ago

noarchy 15y ago

So how might this affect, for example, the practice of performing credit checks on prospective employees? A credit check can also reveal a lot about someone. How do we determine where the limits are?

RobertKohr 15y ago

Beyond the one fuzzy source that has been repeated my numerous media outlets, is there any evidence that this is actually going on? Any blogs where people are ranting about a specific company doing this? It seems like a lot of people are up in arms about something that may not actually be a problem.

meiji 15y ago

Do we even have the names of companies that have done it or is it just one or two and the rest is just urban whispers making it sound like everyone does it? I have, and will continue, to check people out on social networks using publicly available info but I wouldn't ask for account access any more than I would ask if I could go around to their house and read their mail. I will repeat though, information that they have placed in the public domain is fair game.