A warning for Facebook users

There have been several cases reported in the US of people being asked for their Facebook passwords while being interviewed for a role.

Justin Bassett, a New York-based statistician, had just finished answering some standard character questions in a job interview, when he was asked to hand over his Facebook login information after his interviewer could not find his profile on the site, according to the Boston Globe.

Bassett refused and withdrew his job application, as he did not want to be employed by a business which would invade his privacy to such an extent.

While Lee Williams, an online retail worker from the Midlands, told The Telegraph that he was asked by his managing director for his Facebook login details, after his boss had looked him up on the social network and could not see any details about him as his privacy settings were locked down. The boss thought that Williams was hiding something by not having his profile publicly available.

Williams refused to hand his password over. His boss persisted with his request, but then let it go without taking any further action. Williams still works for the company, but did not wish to name it.

Sarah Veale, head of equality and employment rights for the TUC, has warned that the practice is likely to start happening more and more in the UK.

“Once something like this starts happening in the US, it is likely to come over here – especially in American businesses which have outposts in UK. If interviewers in the US are adopting this practice of asking prospective staff for access to their Facebook accounts, they will start doing it over here.”

She described the request as both “dangerous and unnecessary”.

“I think it’s very dangerous and unnecessary to start asking people for access into their personal lives. Once you start asking people to reveal everything about themselves, which is irrelevant to their ability to be able to do a job, you are getting into a tricky area. It’s the equivalent of getting people to spy on prospective staff down at the pub before hiring them.

“It’s also quite a lazy way by bosses to get a full picture of somebody and shows that their interviewing process is unsatisfactory.”

Erin Egan, Facebook's chief privacy officer, policy, responded: "In recent months, we’ve seen a distressing increase in reports of employers or others seeking to gain inappropriate access to people’s Facebook profiles or private information. This practice undermines the privacy expectations and the security of both the user and the user’s friends. It also potentially exposes the employer who seeks this access to unanticipated legal liability

"The most alarming of these practices is the reported incidences of employers asking prospective or actual employees to reveal their passwords. If you are a Facebook user, you should never have to share your password, let anyone access your account, or do anything that might jeopardize the security of your account or violate the privacy of your friends. We have worked really hard at Facebook to give you the tools to control who sees your information...That’s why we’ve made it a violation of Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities to share or solicit a Facebook password."

Since the rise of social networking, there have been growing number of cases around the world where people have been sacked for writing disparaging comments about their jobs on sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

Two months ago, John Flexman, a former human resources executive, began a tribunal against his former employer, BG Group (a major gas exploration firm based in Reading, Berks), accusing the firm of forcing him out after he put his CV online through LinkedIn. He is thought to be the first person in the country to bring a case for constructive dismissal after a dispute with bosses over his profile on the professional networking site.

Flexman is claiming hundreds of thousands of pounds from BG Group, where he earned a £68,000 salary from his job in charge of graduate recruitment. The outcome is due later this year.

However, these American examples are some of the first reported cases of prospective employees being asked for their logins as a way of vetting them before the job is theirs.

Paula Whelan, an employment partner at Shakespeares law firm, said there was nothing to stop employers from asking for logins into social media. However, prospective employees had every right to refuse to hand over the said information.

“Prospective employees have every right to say 'no' as it is a request to access personal information and has nothing to do with somebody’s capability to do a job. And I cannot see any reason why a boss could not at least ask the question as there is nothing they can do to force an interviewee to hand over their Facebook login,” she explained.

Whelan also said that it would be extremely difficult if a person thought they didn’t get a job because they refused to hand over their login details when asked, to prove it was discrimination.

However, Ed Goodwyn, a partner in the employment team at Pinsent Masons, said that the legal situation was very different if a boss asked a current employee for their Facebook password while employed or continued to access their account post interview without telling them.

He said it would be “a breach of the implied duty of trust and confidence” between employer and employee and urged bosses to draft clear social media policies.

If asked to provide your Facebook password, perhaps you should point them at point 4.8 in Facebook's terms and conditions, which states:

"You will not share your password, (or in the case of developers, your secret key), let anyone else access your account, or do anything else that might jeopardize the security of your account."

And point 3.5, which states:

"You will not solicit login information or access an account belonging to someone else."

In that case pursuant to 3.5 I would ask if the interviewer has a Facebook account and ask them for their username so they can be reported.

Quote by kiddkasper

I think it's ethical for a company to do an online search of a current or potential employee to see what exist about that person. To me, it goes along with doing a drug test and background and credit check. But, asking for login information definitely crosses the line and people should resist that every chance they get.

Quote by kiddkasper

Let me expand my response a bit further. I think this whole "war on drugs" thing is stupid. If someone wants to inject their veins with something that was created with household cleaners products in a bathtub (read: crystal meth) that's their choice. Or any other chemical, natural or man-made for that matter. I think the drug laws need to be seriously over-hauled like much of the US government.

Quote by Halish

I know nothing of the US government but I always think laws for addictive chemicals are necessary not to protect the drug user from bad side effects but rather what that drug user then goes on to do in order to obtain the money he needs.

Break into houses? Steal? Muggings? Murders? .. I don't have statistics to back this up but I bet a lot of the crimes committed against the general public are by people on drugs, people who have gotten themselves into trouble and just "needed the money".

Now there's a lot of people who will work, pay for their drugs legally and consider themselves not at fault for a "big brother" society that prevents them from doing what they want. What they often don't realise though is that the drug trade only happens because people will buy it, supply and demand. You (the royal you, not you directly Kasper lol) may think you're in control but the guy waiting in line behind you is down to his last "dollar".

Addictive drugs are bad news and I think laws should be much stricter in all countries. Drug testing at job interviews may be a good deterant but then people with drugs problems are out of work and we're back to crime again.

It's a big web of mess and it's much easier if we didn't have it as a problem.

Quote by NicholasJohn16

My big problem is with employers doing credit checks before hiring someone. Many times it gets people into vicious cycles that they can't escape. You loose your job, so you can't pay your bills, so your credit goes down and then you can't get a job, to pay your bills, because you have a bad credit. I feel that that three digit number has way too much control over our lives. It's scary to think that up to a few decades or so ago, you weren't event allowed to check on your credit score or know what was dragging it down.

Quote by QiqJoe

I can see this in some circumstances, but I know it also serves a useful purpose in others. For example, a credit check is step 1 of obtaining a government (DOD/DOE) security clearance. The reasoning behind this is that foreign or nefarious entities could use this as a leveraging tool against you to acquire top secret information. "Bad credit? Hey, we'll give you LOTS of money if you give us this measly bit of information." I would imagine it would be a similar case with any other company with proprietary secrets (i.e. the recipe for Coca-Cola). Even then, though, that's why they have a full investigation process to your background and take many things into account before approving or denying. I've known of people who had bad (maybe not awful, but certainly not stellar either) credit to get their clearance. I would hope that companies that do the same thing would at least have a reason for running a credit check and having enough checks and balances in place to reasonably deny an otherwise qualified person employment.