ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Maryland is poised to become the first state to ban employers from demanding applicants or workers hand over their log-in information for social media sites like Facebook.
The measure, which handily passed the legislature earlier this month, keeps managers from snooping on password-protected content, a practice advocates of the bill say violates privacy and intimidates job seekers and employees.
Robert Collins, a former corrections officer in Maryland, said he was asked for his Facebook account information while being recertified for his job following a leave of absence.
Collins, who lives in Baltimore, complied with the request, but said he felt embarrassed and violated as an interviewer roamed his private messages, pictures and posts.
"It almost seemed that my compliance was compulsory," Collins said.
The voluntary social media screening for correctional officers, not all employees, is a natural extension of an already "inherently intrusive" background check for people working in law enforcement, said Rick Binetti, executive director of communications for the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services.
The practice was used to screen people who would be working in jails for possible illegal activity and gang affiliations.
"I'm sure if you asked a correctional officer if they were working alongside someone who was known to show gang signs on their social media, that would create an uncomfortable working situation for them," Binetti said.
A review by the corrections department last year assessed 2,689 applications, showing that seven candidates were rejected in part because of information found on their social media profiles.
Another candidate was rejected for the job solely because of content on a social media profile.
That candidate, along with others, used social media profiles that contained images of them showing known gang signs, according to the review.
In April 2011, a few months after the American Civil Liberties Union complained on behalf of Collins, the department issued a revised policy that asked job candidates to voluntarily participate in the review of social media use during their interview. The new policy stops short of asking for log-in or password information.
It is impossible to know exactly how often employers ask to tap into prospective workers' accounts, but Bradley Shear, a Bethesda, Md.-based social media attorney, said he believes it is happening more and more frequently.
Only a handful of clients have contacted him because an employer asked to test drive their accounts, but Shear said many more cases of social media snooping exist. Those asked to turn over their information are just afraid to come forward.
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social media, Rick Binetti, ANNAPOLIS, Md., job seekers, Maryland, Facebook, correctional officer
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