Elected officials seek to protect online privacy

Be careful what you put on Facebook, because any information you list may be fair game for a company to review when it interviews you for a job.

In March, the Associated Press reported that a New York City man was asked for his Facebook password during a job interview.

Though subsequent reports have since cast doubt on whether this is any kind of trend, a number of elected officials from across the nation have voiced their opinion on the matter in recent weeks, even going so far as to call for federal legislation to further protect online privacy.

Two Democratic U.S. Senators, Chuck Schumer of New York and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, have recently questioned the legality of such an interview query and said they are drafting legislation that would “fill any gaps in federal law” to prevent companies from seeking private login information.

Additionally, the senators sent letters to the U.S. Department of Justice and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, urging the agencies to “determine what protections currently exist and what additional protections are necessary.”

“Employers have no right to ask job applicants for their house keys or to read their diaries — why should they be able to ask them for their Facebook passwords and gain unwarranted access to a trove of private information about what we like, and what messages we send to people, who we are friends with?” Schumer said in a written statement on March 26.

Among the biggest employers in Merrick and Bellmore are the school districts. A spokesperson from the Bellmore-Central High School District told the Herald that they do not utilize Facebook when making personnel decisions.

But David Feller, the superintendent of the North Merrick School District said that while the district has no specific policy on its utilization of Facebook, it is “not out of the realm of possibility” that they may check the social networking site to ensure that faculty members are not misrepresenting the district.

“We might take a look at the public Facebook profile to see if there’s anything there that looks really inappropriate,” the superintendent said. “It wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility as part of a background check that we might just do a general search.

“But in terms of asking someone for their password, that sounds like it’s a legal landmine, and I probably wouldn’t want to go down that road without checking with legal council, but my gut feeling would be that’s an invasion of privacy,” Feller continued.

Carol Miaskoff, the assistant legal council of the EEOC, confirmed that it is, indeed, a legal issue, but “in a slightly complex way.”

Federal law prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, gender, age, disabilities or family medical history.

“The issue here is, if the employer forces its way onto full access of the Facebook page, it may well learn information relevant to any number of these issues,” Miaskoff told the Herald, “and may make a decision on that basis. And if it makes a decision on that basis, it’s discriminating.”

She added that different laws have different requirements when it comes to what may or may not be asked in a job interview. She explained that the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act both have specific provisions that forbid employers from asking about disabilities or genetic information under certain circumstances.

Conversely, Miaskoff said, the law differs in other respects. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination by employers on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. The Age Discrimination in Employment Act, meanwhile, forbids employment discrimination against anyone who is at least 40 years old. But there is no provision in either act, she said, that prohibits asking.

“Asking isn’t, in itself, illegal,” she said. “Getting [information] isn’t, in itself, illegal, but having it and then making a decision could be hard in that situation to prove that you were not discriminating.”

The same principles apply whether employers are looking at public Facebook profiles or requesting passwords.

A spokesman for the Department of Justice declined to comment.

Congressional representatives agree that online privacy is a serious issue — but disagree on how to address it. On March 27, Democrats in the House of Representatives attempted to pass an amendment to a Republican-sponsored bill that would strengthen the Federal Communications Commission’s ability to protect online privacy. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Bill Walden of Oregon, which was not directly related to the Facebook password issue, called for greater limitations on the power of the FCC to regulate private companies.

By introducing the online privacy amendment, Democrats tried to negate the deregulation proposed in the bill, Ed Perlmutter, a Democrat from Colorado, explained during a House session on March 27. “What this amendment does is say you cannot demand, as a condition of employment, that somebody reveal a confidential password to their Facebook, to their Flickr, to their Twitter, to whatever their account may be,” Perlmutter said. “It only makes sense, because those that are using these kinds of social media have an expectation of privacy. They have an expectation that their right to free speech or right to religion will be respected when they use these social media outlets.”

House Republicans passed the bill, but rejected the amendment by a vote of 236 to 184. Walden said he would be open to working with the Democrats on a new law. “There are many of us who, after this debate concludes and moves on,” he said, “would be happy to work with [Democrats] on legislation, because I think this is a real issue that we all share and that is protecting privacy.”

In a statement released on March 23, Erin Egan, Facebook’s chief privacy officer, said, “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 user’s friends. It also potentially exposes the employer who seeks this access to unanticipated legal liability.

“If you are a Facebook user,” Egan’s statement continued, “you should never have to share your password, let alone access your account, or do anything that might jeopardize the security of your account or violate the privacy of your friends.”

James Muller, a lifelong Merrick resident and an unemployed social studies and special education teacher, said he is very particular with his Facebook page, especially when he searches for jobs. “You never know what they can see or what they can find,” Muller said, “so I’m very careful.”

His primary concern, he added, is the behavior of companies as a whole. “They will judge someone off their Facebook page, which I don’t think they should be allowed to do,” he said. “But they will do that.”