CHICAGO (AP) — Illinois is making it illegal for employers to ask
job-seekers to hand over passwords to their social networking accounts.
Gov. Pat Quinn signed the measure into law today during an event at the Illinois Institute of Technology.
In their efforts to vet job applicants, some companies and government
agencies have been asking to log in to a prospective employee's accounts
on sites like Facebook and Twitter to have a look around.
Critics say that amounts to a serious invasion of privacy.
The Illinois law does allow bosses to view public information not restricted by privacy settings on a site.
Several other states are considering similar bans, including
Washington, Delaware, Maryland and New Jersey. Two U.S. senators have
asked the U.S. Department of Justice to review whether such requests are
legal.
