Senators Seek to Limit Employer Scouting on Facebook

Privacy really needs a fresh look.  As Google+ and Facebook both now recognize, there are degrees of privacy, from things we're willing to share with a wide circle of acquaintances to matters just for family or close friends.

If there's anything you want prospective employers to see, just post it publicly.  It should stop there; as has been pointed out above, there are plenty of other ways to do checks for criminal and other behavior.

Again, the tricky thing about privacy is that it does not define itself.  I may have a tattoo around my navel.  It may be called "private" if I never let anyone see it.  But, if I go bare-chested to the beach, it is no longer private.  The "information" (existence of, and form of the tattoo) is only private if I treat it as such.  It is not inherently private OR public.  Certainly, there are categories of information that seem to most people to be private (medical condition, for example), but there are people who have written books detailing their medical issues (and, one hopes, how they overcame their problems). 

This actually points up an interesting issue about the need for this kind of legislation.  If employers are already subject to limits on the kinds of information they can gather in the interview / hiring process, then is there really a need to prohibit access to that kind of information that might be gathered from social networking sites?  The senators' letter to DOJ / EEOC itself mentions the fact that there may already be limits on access to information. 

The employer who knows more about the background / capabilities of a potential employee can better choose an employee who will fit the needs of the workplace.

The smart job candidate will be sure to display the relevant parts of their background -- and their talents -- in public.  There's no problem with that.  If I apply for a job as a journalist, I'm happy to provide links to my published work.

The issue is with snooping through information which is actually private, just because it happens to reside, in effect, in the cloud.

Good article, Steven.

This seems to me (from the first time I had heard of it) to be a clear violation of privacy and an unreasonable request.  The job market being what it is, I guess some folks can't afford to say no and potentially lose a job.  We use background checks and DISC surveys in our hiring but both of those are legal.  As our techs are the face of our company, when they go on-site or remotely access a client's computer, we need to be able to trust them (and have our clients' trust them).  The background check looks into any criminal past or outstanding issues while the DISC survey gives us an idea of what kind of challenges a potential hire enjoys and dislikes.

However, from an HR standpoint, there are certain things you cannot ask or require in an interview.  Age, religion, marital status come to mind.  All those things would (possibly) be apparent to the interviewer if s/he was able to peruse an applicant's FB page.  Yes, some folks leave their settings to Public, but *requiring* the job seeker's UN/PW seems illegal to me.

For example, if an interviewee were to present in a wheelchair, I would be allowed to read the job requirements off and ask if the person, with reasonable assistance, would be able to perform them.  I am NOT allowed to inquire about their injury or question their resolve to do the job.  There are gray areas in HR (such as a college graduation year providing a hint at age) but this FB stuff seems completely out of bounds to me.

Alas, the information flow / privacy policy dilemma arises in a host of other areas as well.  Gathering information on consumer behavior on the web, for example, helps companies provide more targeted advertising, better service and lower cost, but there is a privacy concern on the flip-side.  Privacy involves balancing of interests.

To be fair, similar issues arise in the context of intellectual property (and lots of other areas).  We want information to flow freely, but we also want to protect the legitimate rights of inventors, authors and others.  Again, balancing of interests is required. 

Thanks, Steven. Yes, the situation would be easy if there weren't a "good" side to employers accessing information on FB.

In theory, sharing of information should make for a more efficient market.  The employer who knows more about the background / capabilities of a potential employee can better choose an employee who will fit the needs of the workplace.  And the employer who knows more about the background of candidates can take additional steps (not so sure about the glasses for my kids example, but lots of other things--like targeted advertising) that may attract more appropriate candidates to apply.  Employees certainly are taking advantage of new information sources (job posting boards, and "rate your workplace" message centers, for example) that give a much clearer idea of what jobs are available, and what types of opportunities are represented.

The big-picture questions that are implicated by such information sharing basically involve policy choices: Do we prefer to err on the side of permitting information to flow freely, or to err on the side of protecting choice to release such information (privacy / individual autonomy), and/or avoid risks of improper behavior (such as discrimination)?  These are not easy questions.

In an interesting twist, some employers actually use Facebook profiles as a means of attracting would-be candidates.

Would you say no to a pair of fun glasses sent to you by someone who wanted to hire you and saw that you had small kids who loved this kind of thing?

It's a tough call. You don't want to be mean, but....

But some of the Facebook posting may NOT be public.  There are privacy settings that permit a user to restrict access to certain "friends" and not others.