Bozeman Montana Wants Your Passwords
If you want to apply for a job working for The City of Bozeman, Montana, be prepared. You'll have to list your login information and passwords for any social network websites on which you are a member.
The job application includes a standard background check, searching for criminal history, employment & education verifications as well as driving records. It also states:
"Please list any and all, current personal or business websites, web pages or memberships on any internet-based chat rooms, social clubs or forums, to include, but not limited to: Facebook, Google, Yahoo, YouTube.com, MySpace, etc."
Bozeman City Attorney, Greg Sullivan, was quoted as saying, "...We do those types of investigations to make sure the people that we hire have the highest moral character and are a good fit for the City."
While employers are encouraged to conduct thorough background checks utilizing social networking sites to screen applicants is normally not advised. Employers can find themselves in legal liability because many sites reveal a job applicant's race, gender, religion, sexual preference and age - all items that are not legal to take into account during the hiring process.
In Article 2, Section 10 of the Montana Constitution, it says "the right of individual privacy is essential to the well-being of a free society and shall not be infringed without the showing of a compelling state interest."
Would you apply for a job with Bozeman, Montana or do you think they are limiting their number of applicants because of this issue?
Labels: background checks, personal information, social networking
posted by JenWiehl at 2:17 PM
7 Comments:
While I do think that this is ridiculous, I suppose people should be allowed to waive their privacy rights if they are willing to in order to get a specific job. I think this is extra frightening since it's a government position.
I think that this is outrageous! Giving up user names and passwords to an employer for your social sites is ridiculous. I think that they are limiting the types of applicants that would even apply. If I applied for a job and they asked me for that information I would tell them that it is none of their business.
Ever notice that most people are silly enough to post discriminating personal acitivites on public social network pages? Potential employers don't even need to ask for login information, simply Google the applicant's name and you'll have enough evidence to never hire anyone again.
If it is a private industry, then it should not be concerned with the applicant's personal life, especially when it comes to social networking sites.
If it is a government, then, to some degree, I understand why it should be concerned since the potential applicant would represent the government. However, to request for usernames and passwords is unacceptable. There are more ways to measure character than a person's electronic user profile.
That is outrageous. There is nothing on my social networking pages that an employer could take issue with but I still would not give them my user names or passwords. That is none of their business and it is an invasion of privacy. I am surprised that this is coming from Montana. Very Big Brother!
It is quite sad that it takes events like this to highlight the need for the proper screening of people for any position be it reality tv star, janitor, or doctor. My heart goes out to the poor slain womans family.
I used to work for an apartment complex in Florida, one that I will not name, and we learned first hand how important full screening is. We conducted your basic criminal and credit checks. We did not however run identity scans. If we had we may not have accepted the applicant we did... who paid for several months of rent upfront and only had a mattress in his room, he used our community because it was close to the airfield where he was taking piloting courses. Courses whose knowledge he later used to ram into one of our nations greatest symbols of commerce on September 11th. We were upset to find out that if we had only run a simple scan on his social we would have discovered it was not legitimate. I know that there still would have been a Sept. 11th. But I think today I would not have the guilt I have from knowing I harbored one of those... those... people, in my community.
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