<p>[Red</a> Tape - Govt. agencies, colleges demand applicants’ Facebook passwords](<a href=“http://redtape.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/06/10585353-govt-agencies-colleges-demand-applicants-facebook-passwords]Red”>http://redtape.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/06/10585353-govt-agencies-colleges-demand-applicants-facebook-passwords)</p>
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<p>This is nuts. No way would I give (or advise my kids to give) my Facebook password to an employer or a college!</p>
<p>Any savvy kid knows enough to either get rid of their facebook, or have a second professional account. </p>
<p>However, I would not give anyone the password to any of my accounts, facebook or otherwise. Also, it is such a risk as many people do use the same pw for different accounts and it just goes against every grain of internet safety sense out there. On my kids college site it states that it is a violation to give out their pw to another person. That is how strongly they are against sharing passwords with anyone. The same rules apply to any account you have.</p>
<p>Prison guards can have connections to gangs without posting anything about it on their FB account, so the requirement is not justified.</p>
<p>I have heard of college coaches requiring team members to take down their FB during the season, but I have not heard of requiring them to give up password information.</p>
<p>Agree to both the suggestion of having 2 fb pgs (or many private groups on fb) and NEVER giving your password to ANYONE.</p>
<p>Regarding having 2 facebook pages: It is against Facebook’s terms of service to have more than one identity. But so is giving your password to anyone.</p>
<p>[url=<a href=“http://www.facebook.com/legal/terms]Facebook[/url”>Facebook]Facebook[/url</a>]</p>
<p>Registration and Account Security</p>
<p>Here are some commitments you make to us relating to registering and maintaining the security of your account:
You will not provide any false personal information on Facebook, or create an account for anyone other than yourself without permission.
You will not create more than one personal profile.
If we disable your account, you will not create another one without our permission.
You will not use your personal profile for your own commercial gain (such as selling your status update to an advertiser).
You will not use Facebook if you are under 13.
You will not use Facebook if you are a convicted sex offender.
You will keep your contact information accurate and up-to-date.
You will not share your password, (or in the case of developers, your secret key), let anyone else access your account, or do anything else that might jeopardize the security of your account.
You will not transfer your account (including any page or application you administer) to anyone without first getting our written permission.
If you select a username for your account we reserve the right to remove or reclaim it if we believe appropriate (such as when a trademark owner complains about a username that does not closely relate to a user’s actual name).</p>
<p>Maybe one could argue that they aren’t both “personal” accounts.</p>
<p>I would never go somewhere or work somewhere that demanded my password. Too much of an invasion of privacy. End of story.</p>
<p>If I had kids to feed and a lack of options, romanigypsyeyes, I don’t know what I would do. But given any kind of power to choose, I agree with you 100%. I would run, not walk, away from that job.</p>
<p>True, Hanna. When kids are involved and there are no other options, then that’s a different story. I was thinking of a typical person in a typical situation :). And ANY student for that matter because there are always other options.</p>
<p>Also, if instead of demanding your password, the employer asks you to log into Facebook on their computer, in front of them…assume that that IS giving them your password. It’s a very simple thing to set up one’s computer to record keystrokes.</p>
<p>It’s also a way for employers to get around the legal restrictions on asking certain types of questions in job interviews. Suppose an employer requires an applicant to log onto Facebook, and sees something there about the applicant’s plans to have children, or the fact that the applicant saw a therapist last week? That’s exactly the kind of thing employers aren’t allowed to ask about in job interviews.</p>
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Why in the world would someone post something like that on a site like FB? Do all of their many ‘friends’ really need to know that? I know you used it as an example but it’s crazy what people post about themselves on these sites that they have no complete control over. They may think they have control over it but they don’t. Even with the privacy settings they’re only as good as the security of FB, which has been hacked multiple times, and the individual’s own security practices, which for many is pretty minimal since they don’t understand how any of this works from a technical perspective.</p>
<p>I do understand how it works. I don’t have a FB account. I have no worries about a potential employer asking me the question.</p>
<p>wouldn’t work at a place like this…</p>
<p>also pretty sure the place I am currently interning would send you to extra training if you told one of the IT security people that you gave someone else one of your passwords.</p>
<p>Maybe next potential employers will be asking for people’s College Confidential screen names.</p>
<p>Well, if they ask me, I’m gonna tell "em I’m Gladgranddad or soccerguy, just to really confuse them. ;)</p>
<p>Yikes! What’s next? X-ray machines at airports?</p>
<p>Really though it seems like asking for a FB password in order to snoop is like asking for a key to your house so they can go through your things or asking to go through your laptop or through your email. I don’t see how they can legitimately do it. </p>
<p>I think it’s fine for them to see what’s ‘out there’ for everyone to see but not request special access. My caution above was just a reminder to people to be cautious what they put on these sites since it’s not as secure as you think and many many college aged people will end up regretting what they’ve posted someday as they look for jobs and have others view some of the things they’ve posted.</p>
<p>don’t worry poetgrl, I am ready to answer all questions on your behalf that any employer may have!</p>
<p>I don’t see why I would give my FB password to a potential employer. What kind of a job are we talking about, anyway? It sounds really snoopy and nosy to me for an employer to want to see that. After reading this, maybe I’ll disconnect from FB before any job interview I might have. It’s easy enough to do. And easy enough to re-activate. It’s not that I have anything scandalous on there, but how is any of it – the photo albums, the jokes, the links to you tube videos of cats, the recipe I tried a few days ago, random comments about eating oreos dipped in nutella, etc. relevant to any job application?</p>
<p>People send information in private messages with the expectation that they will be kept private, they didn’t post it publicly for a reason. It is not just your information that is on your facebook but other peoples as well, and it wouldn’t be right for youto share that information with anyone, let alone a stranger at a job interview. It could be personal financial information, other passwords or account information, ss#. The information was not intended for a potential employer. </p>
<p>I can see them wanting to see the public information that anyone could find through a google search of the applicants name as that could reflect on their company, but sharing pw and gaining access to information that is none of their business is crazy. </p>
<p>I think if someone asked me for that info I would immediately take out a pen and paper if I didn’t have one out already and let me think about that but first I just need you home address and ss#.</p>
<p>I am glad to see that someone is trying to put a stop to this.</p>
<p>[Bill</a> would deny Facebook data | Courier-Post | courierpostonline.com](<a href=“http://www.courierpostonline.com/article/20120323/NEWS01/203230305/Bill-would-deny-Facebook-data]Bill”>http://www.courierpostonline.com/article/20120323/NEWS01/203230305/Bill-would-deny-Facebook-data)</p>
<p>I was the HR lawyer for a major corporation until recently and we would never have asked for a facebook password. As Donna pointed out, it could lead to the discovery of information that can not be used in making a hiring decision. We struggled with the use of social media searches as part of background checks. You almost have to do that, but there are safeguards to put in place to ensure that you only make your decision based on appropriate factors. We did have some interesting things come up in a few searches, though. One applicant had a blog which indicated some things about her work ethic that we did not find particularly appealing such as “Well, some days I just don’t feel like going to work, so I DON’T!” There are appropriate uses of social media searches, but none of them should involve getting a password. In fact, we didn’t allow a superior ask a subordinate to show them someone’s facebook page when the subordinate was facebook friends with the person and the boss was not. We felt that was inappropriate. Social media has presented lots of issues for employers!</p>