By Jamie Neben
The city of Bozeman, Montana is asking applicants to supply their user names AND passwords for web groups and social networking sites. According to the city, nobody will be scored negatively if the information is not provided. We know already that many employers search the internet, kind of like an additional background check, before making hiring decisions. First of all, how much should our “off the clock” behavior be taken into consideration when it comes to our jobs? And is there anything right about providing personal data to that extent? If so, would it also be ok to hand over the keys to our houses so that our new boss can take a look around and decide if it’s clean enough, stylish enough, etc…?
Can anybody make an argument as to why this is acceptable?
What is the city of Bozeman offering as its reason for requesting this information?
Update: As a result of worldwide attention and scorn, the city has quickly decided to eliminate this policy. The human resources director also apologized at the city commission meeting on Monday night. The reason for this lunacy was because they asserted that many employees, such as police officers and firefighters, need to maintain the highest integrity. This was apparently to be a way of verifying as much.
That’s good news but I’m bummed that we didn’t get a chance to discuss it first.
Thanks, Maria!
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