6/18 | City of Bozeman Invades Online Privacy of Job Applicants
Job applicants must reveal log-ins, usernames
Relinquish your social media log-ins before you leave. Thanks, pardner.
If you’re reading this story on this Web site, I might assume one of three things:
- You have used or are currently using online social media like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc.
- You are interested in obtaining personal loans and cash advance in Nevadas to give your budget a boost (sounds good to me).
- You stumbled in here via Google, which is fine. Please apply for personal loans and cash advance in Nevadas before you leave, as they’ll help you with that surprise bill you never saw coming.
However, if you are applying for a job with the City of Bozeman in Montana, you need to see this coming: Bozeman will require you to give them all of your social media log-ins so that your background can be fully explored.
How’s that for privacy?
I understand Bozeman’s need to investigate whether a potential employee is trustworthy enough to serve the public trust, but this is ridiculous. According to CBS Montana News, one person who recently applied for employment with Bozeman E-mailed their concerns to the television station. It’s right there in the city’s background check policy: “To be considered for a job, applicants must provide log-in information and passwords for social network sites in which they participate.”
This requirement appears on a waiver statement applicants are required to sign. It gives the City of Bozeman permission to “conduct an investigation into the person’s background, references, character, past employment, education, credit history, criminal or police records,” says the CBS Montana News team. However, it also exposes you and any of your online friends to investigating eyes. There are currently no blocks in place that could keep Bozeman from looking for information about anyone on your friends list.
Hopefully, no one in Bozeman has spurs to sharpen with you
“Please list any and all, current personal or business Web sites, 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.,” the City form states. That includes usernames and passwords.
Yet what does the Montana State Constitution have to say about this? While it doesn’t address social networking completely, CBS Montana News reports the following language: “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.”
As it so happens, Bozeman takes privacy rights very seriously, claims city attorney Greg Sullivan. It is his interpretation of the law that the balance between Bozeman’s “need to know” and Constitutional rights of the individual is being properly maintained by this waiver information requirement.
“So, we have positions ranging from fire and police, which require people of high integrity for those positions, all the way down to the lifeguards and the folks that work in city hall here. So 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,” Sullivan said.
A traditional background check should be enough
URLs of social media pages is one thing… but they can easily be found via a Google search. In my mind, all that giving someone else the log-ins achieves is granting them the power to post in your name. Sullivan responded to that concern, as well as the fear that your friends’ info could be compromised, as follows:
“You know, I can understand that concern. One thing that’s important for folks to understand about what we look for is none of the things that the federal constitution lists as protected things, we don’t use those. We’re not putting out this broad brush stroke of trying to find out all kinds of information about the person that we’re not able to use or shouldn’t use in the hiring process,” Sullivan said.
So we’re supposed to take the City of Bozeman’s word for it? There are countless ways they could use an applicant’s information fraudulently. It could even be a city employee with a grudge. Sure, an online information infraction would probably be spotted eventually after the victim takes issue, leading to the employee’s firing. But it’s too late then. That damage would have already been done.
Wait! Here’s a simple idea!
CBS News Montana cites the popular opinion that the City of Bozeman should create its own profile in services like Facebook. That way, they could ask an applicant to “friend” them, which would open up the applicant’s profile only – not those of their friends.Sullivan responded by saying that “officials could explore the option.” Yeah, I’m sure they’ll get right on that. Perhaps they’ll even form a committee. Perhaps they’ll need doughnuts. Perhaps personal loans and cash advance in Nevadas will be necessary (depending upon the size of the committee, of course).
Related Video:
