Asking Prospective Employees for Social Media Credentials

A recent trend in the human resources community is to ask prospective employees for usernames and passwords to social media sites in order to allow the hiring employer access to otherwise private information about the candidate's “online identity.” A prospective employee's social media site can provide a wealth of information both quickly and cheaply, including how they spend their free time, with whom they associate, and their professional and personal interests. Generally, users protect information like this from the general public with privacy settings, but employers can quickly bypass this privacy wall by merely demanding access. In doing so, however, employers may inadvertently expose themselves to liability under existing laws.