“Get the job by sharing your Facebook login and password”, say the US employers

“Get the job by sharing your Facebook login and password”, say the US employers

The Associated Press of USA has recently reported that some private and public agencies in the country are giving a tough time to job seekers by asking about their social media details. The job offers are being made on the condition of sharing Facebook logins
and passwords. This is plain ridiculous and has alarmed privacy advocates. However, the legitimacy of the matter still remains unclear in the US.

We should hope that this malicious practice does not catch on in other parts of the world.

The US attorney general, Eric Holder, has been inquired about the whole situation if the practice of job-offering firms asking for social media passwords during job interviews is okay with the federal law. Two American senators are taking keen interes
in knowing the legality of the practice.

In this regard, senator Schumer shared his views in the following manner. He stated: “In an age where more and more of our personal information and our private social interactions are online, it is vital that all individuals be allowed to determine for themselves
what personal information they want to make public and protect personal information from their would-be employers. This is especially important during the job-seeking process, when all the power is on one side of the fence.”

Meanwhile, the biggest social media network ‘Facebook’ has issued strict warning to the people promoting this trend of asking job applicants for their passwords. Facebook has said that such practice would badly affect the terms of service. The company has
threatened legal action against such employers, who are trying to violate Facebook’s long-standing policy against sharing passwords.

The official statement by Facebook said: “We don’t think employers should be asking prospective employees to provide their passwords because we don’t think it’s the right thing to do. While we do not have any immediate plans to take legal action against
any specific employers, we look forward to engaging with policy makers and other stakeholders, to help better safeguard the privacy of our users.”

Nevertheless, the Information Commissioner’s Office in the UK has warned employers that it would have “very serious concerns” if they were to force job-seeker for Facebook login and password details, following reports of such demands in the US.

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Posted by Irfan Khokhar on Mar 27 2012. Filed under Entertainment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry