The state Division of Corrections (DOC) backed down Tuesday after the Maryland branch of the American Civil Liberties Union threatened to take legal action if the government agency did not rescind a policy asking for the login information to job applicants' social networking website accounts.
DOC suspended the policy allowing interviewers to ask job applicants if they use any social media and use the applicant's login information to scan the account for posts, emails, photographs or other information to ensure that the candidate is not involved in illegal activity or connected with a gang, said Deborah Jeon, the legal director for the ACLU of Maryland.
"It's illegal under federal law," Jeon told 630 WMAL News.
The ACLU was ready to file suit on behalf of Robert Collins, a DOC officer who was asked to provide a DOC investigator with his Facebook username and password during a job interview.
"One of the real problems with the government having somebody's password for Facebook is that then they can review not just the materials relating to the employee, but all the employee's friends," she added.
In a letter dated January 25 to Gary D. Maynard, secretary of the state Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, Jeon asked him to revoke the policy that allows the DOC to ask for social media account information. The letter also requested that the login information and any data garnered from Collins' Facebook page be destroyed.
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Source: wmal.com
By: Amanda Gaines and Jen Richer
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