Maryland corrections officer Robert Collins was recently forced to give his Facebook Login to his employer, the Maryland Department of Corrections, during a recertification interview in order to keep his job. The American Civil Liberties Union has taken the case and will be helping Mr. Collins sue the Maryland DOC.
This all started on January 25th, 2012, when the ACLU sent a letter to the Maryland DOC, in response to the requirement that all people applying for employment, as well as current employees in need of recertification, provide the state of Maryland with the logins and passwords to their personal social media profiles, for background checks.
“The demand for Facebook login information is not only a gross breach of privacy for Officer Collins and his friends, it raises significant legal concerns under the Federal Stored Communications Act and Maryland state law, which protect privacy rights and extend protections to electronic communications,” an ACLU spokesperson said in a statement. “As many of us begin to rely on sites like Facebook to stay connected to our friends and family, it’s important for employers and the government to keep in mind that, for most users, Facebook is a medium for private communications.”
Demanding a person’s private social network credentials is not the same thing as performing a background check on their public internet postings. With a login and passwords in hand, an employer has complete access to every message, picture, video, and post the person has ever made in their account. This is equivalent to a government agency rummaging through an employee or potential employees private mail.
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