Would You Give Your Facebook Password To A Potential Employer?
By John McDevitt
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Some employers are asking job applicants to turn over their Facebook passwords for background checks.
Would you do it?
It's up to you to give it to them with possible consequences if you don't. But employers can and are asking job candidates for Facebook passwords and there are other ways they're gaining access to your virtual world.
"Apparently companies can ask you to friend someone in their organization or they will ask you to log in on the company's machine and then they can keep track of your password if you log in," Claire Simmers says.
She's a professor and chair for the department of management for St. Joseph University specializing in relationships between employers and employees in workplace, especially in the digital area.
She says it's a brave new world that we are just beginning to understand our technology.
"Our technology is much more advanced than our social mores and even our legal mores of working our way through what is happening," she says. "And I think both individual cultures and organizations are going to push the limit and the legal system is going to be very busy."
There are job seekers out there creating separate Facebook accounts just for business.
"So I think companies need to be careful that employees could possibly manipulate that."
How important is your privacy: Would you give up your Facebook password to get a job? Is it right for a company to ask for your password? Are you a manager who asks for passwords? Let us know what you think in the comments.
