Job interview? Fork over Facebook Password

rwguinn said:
Wrong again. Or if you're correct, it is a very wide-spread myth:
http://www.uwec.edu/career/online_library/illegal_ques.htm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8963-2003Apr11.html
http://www.gsworkplace.lbl.gov/Docu.../IllegalorInappropriateInterviewQuestions.pdf
http://www.pacificu.edu/offices/hr/training/interview/pdfs/LegalOrIllegalInterviewQuestions.pdf
I think a couple of universities, and few legal case citations, The Washington Post, and other reputable sites may actually know better than a random poster with an apparent chip on his shoulder...
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You don't know jack. Try Googling BFOQ, and get someone to explain to you what that means.


If an employer needs an athlete to play pro basketball, the employer most certainly can ask 'How tall are you?' of applicants. If they need someone to be a body double for Meredith Eaton-Gilden , they can ask 'How short are you?'.

If the police department needs applicants over 4feet 6 inches, under 7 feet or under 400 pounds to fit in the equipment being used for the job, they can ask that in the application process.

Asking what year you graduated college is a standard blank on millions of applications.

So is *asking* you to voluntarily fill out the EEOC statistics form declaring your race, etc.

Enjoy your fantasies that the mere act of asking these questions is 'illegal' all you want, but don't hold your breath waiting for 'chip on the shoulder' comments to make the rest of the world suddenly abandon reality.
 
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Ryokan said:
Your employer could do bad things if they got your bank account details. But so could someone at the bank! Why trust the people at one company over the other?

You never gave a proper answer last time I brought this up, but is this argument somehow magically limited to Facebook, or does it apply to the phone company, library, bank, video store, etc, as well?
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From my point of view it applies to every company, not just Facebook. You have to trust people at all companies that handle info you don't want public. A person at any of these companies could do harm to you. If you think the chances of your prospective employer doing harm to you are that much worse, it would probably be a good idea to look elsewhere for a job.
 
Ryokan said:
Yes.

However, I was asking Pulvinar, since he's the one arguing for handing over any information asked for to your employer, since it would be hypocritical to trust one company over another, or something like that. He's the one I was hoping would answer the question and justify his position, not someone who agreed that employers have no business asking for such private and confidential information.
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Mah baaad.
 
Pulvinar said:
From my point of view it applies to every company, not just Facebook. You have to trust people at all companies that handle info you don't want public. A person at any of these companies could do harm to you. If you think the chances of your prospective employer doing harm to you are that much worse, it would probably be a good idea to look elsewhere for a job.
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So if your boss called you up and said, 'Mr. Pulvinar, I'm going to need your credit card pin code, access to your bank account, permission to peruse your post mail, your e-mail password, your library records and phone records', you would just go, 'well, of course boss, I trust you like I trust my bank, and as my boss you should have access to all my private and personal information, so I can't see any reason why I wouldn't.'

Is there anyone here who would give such information to their boss? Anyone at all? Should everyone who doesn't start looking for a job elsewhere, because they don't 'trust their boss'?

Likewise, if someone from your e-mail provider called and asked for access to your bank account, that would be perfectly okay by you, because, well, why trust the people at one company over the other?

Are you playing devil's advocate, trolling, just being contrarian or are you actually serious?

ETA: It isn't just a safety and security question. It's a matter of privacy. Privacy is a human right.
 
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Ryokan said:
So if your boss called you up and said, 'Mr. Pulvinar, I'm going to need your credit card pin code, access to your bank account, permission to peruse your post mail, your e-mail password, your library records and phone records', you would just go, 'well, of course boss, I trust you like I trust my bank, and as my boss you should have access to all my private and personal information, so I can't see any reason why I wouldn't.'

Likewise, if someone from your e-mail provider called and asked for access to your bank account, that would be perfectly okay by you, because, well, why trust the people at one company over the other?

Are you playing devil's advocate, trolling, just being contrarian or are you actually serious?

ETA: It isn't just a safety and security question. It's a matter of privacy. Privacy is a human right.
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I would and have given such info where I agreed it was necessary, and have refused in other cases. You always want to be sure to get such requests in writing so you have legal recourse should someone break that trust. I would refuse to give my e-mail provider my bank account number since they don't need it, but I have given that to my power company for automatic bill payment, for example.

However I don't have any expectation of full privacy with e-mail or Facebook. It would be foolish to rely on it.
 
Pulvinar said:
I would and have given such info where I agreed it was necessary.
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Well, that's a mighty big qualifier there.

I can't think of any situation where it would be necessary for an employer to have access to my Facebook account. He's happy to friend me and peruse my public information, my pictures, my wall postings, and everything else that is publicly available to everyone, but he can't log in as me and see my private conversations and break my EULA with Facebook.

So it seems we're actually in agreement.

Pulvinar said:
However I don't have any expectation of full privacy with e-mail or Facebook. It would be foolish to rely on it.
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And the only reason you'd have to not expect that is if someone got hold of your account information and password. Keep that safe, and you're golden.
 
Ryokan said:
And the only reason you'd have to not expect that is if someone got hold of your account information and password. Keep that safe, and you're golden.
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Except that you can't expect it to be kept private from the providers themselves. They don't need a password to your account since they can already see what's in it. For true privacy you should use encryption, such as PGP.
 
Pulvinar said:
Maybe it's a test: if you freely give your password, you're shown the door.
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Or maybe they want to see if you can construct strong passwords. If your Facebook password is qwerty, then they turn you away.
 
Pulvinar said:
Whatever you have on Facebook, it's not private from them. As long as your employer doesn't make it public, they would be just one more company knowing it. So it's really a question of why keep it from one company and not another?
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Because Facebook isn't going to object to my personal feelings, nor does it much care that I post political statements on my Facebook.

A perspective employer might.
 
kerikiwi said:
Really? They can't ask about when you graduated?
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HR trainers typically instruct people not to ask candidates when they graduated from high school because it would tend to discriminate by age. Asking about college graduation is routine, and so is asking a person's highest level of education.
 
Tony said:
Irrelevant. There is still an authority using coercion to get you to do something you don't want or need to do. Reagan understood this when he pissed on Americans' of their right to not have their privacy invaded by employees when he pressured companies to drug test employees.
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Drugs are illegal, and also could open the company to lawsuits of the person is high and hurts someone on the job, or themselves.

My political or personal views, are not.
 
Pulvinar said:
You don't think a criminal background check would be intrusive?

You would already have to trust the people at Facebook (presumedly all strangers to you) with everything you put there. They don't need your password to see it. Why aren't people here up in arms about that in the first place?
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Background checks are public information. Anyone can run a background check on anyone else.
 
Pulvinar said:
What could possibly be the harm of hiring a thief? Trust has to go both ways.
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True. :)

A little extra work to fake a Facebook account with a few fake friends.
Give them that and you'll be richly rewarded with nothing to worry about.

P.S. I wouldn't want to live in a society without trust.
 
triforcharity said:
Because Facebook isn't going to object to my personal feelings, nor does it much care that I post political statements on my Facebook.

A perspective employer might.
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Yes, they might. They might also object to your appearance, your voice, the bumper stickers on your car, the cut of your jib...

Any place where you have to hide who you are to get the job is sure not a place I'd want to work. I guess I've been lucky.
 
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