Does Two Equal A Trend?

I’m not sure. But Illinois has joined Maryland in passing legislation that will limit the ability of employers to request personal identifiers for social networking sites from employees and prospective employees. The Illinois law also bars employers from forcing employees and prospective employees—without revealing their passwords—to display portions of their social networking profiles for review. I think other states will follow suit. Note that this is a privacy issue. But note that there is not nearly as much a privacy interest in publicly available information. Anything a prospective employee posts on a social media site that is available to the world is exactly that – available to the world. Including prospective employers. This legislation doesn’t change that. It just means that a prospective employer can’t make you turn over information that you have decided to keep private.