When EFF considers a job applicant, we ask for the usual information: a resume, references, maybe writing samples. When we decide to hire someone, we require a few more pieces of personal data, the standard HR stuff, to ensure the lucky employee gets paid on time and is covered by health insurance.

What doesn’t EFF demand? Social media passwords.

We don’t require applicants to unlock their Facebook accounts and reveal their private communications, photo albums or calendars. No one here demands the potential employees unlock their Twitter or Google+ accounts to expose their private, direct messages. We certainly don’t want to know what they’re posting about themselves on online dating sites or on closed Bible study messageboards.

This isn’t only because EFF respects its employees’ privacy. It’s because, as of Jan. 1, it’s the law in California.

Last year, Maryland became the first state to explicitly prohibit employers from forcing applicants or workers to disclose their personal names or passwords as a condition of employment. California followed soon after with its own measure, which further bars private employers from even requesting access to their workers social-media accounts. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, some 28 states are weighing legislation addressing the issue in one regard or another in 2013.

Broadly speaking, an individual should not have to open up their online private lives to get or keep a job. Not only is it an invasion of the job-seeker’s privacy, but such practices expose personal information belonging to friends and family members who thought they were communicating privately within a closed network.

Continue reading at:  https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/03/stand-headline-social-media-b...