Senate Bill 1411, sponsored by State Senator Rick Murphy, which protects a prospective employee from being required to turn over their user name and password information as a requirement for employment, is moving forward. Murphy wants to ban employers from demanding from prospective hires or employees their usernames and passwords to social media websites.
Murphy says that asking for that kind of information opens private citizens up to all kinds of privacy concerns. Murphy told lawmakers at a public safety hearing Wednesday, “This legislation is about protecting an individual’s right to privacy.”
“If prospective employers are allowed to demand up front, or even after hiring, from employees the log in information for their social media accounts, that’s a big privacy breach for a private citizen, and they’re really not in a position to object because their livelihood is threatened if they don’t comply.” Murphy argued that employers would then not only get to view a social media account but also “have control over it.”
He said that employers would still retain the right to monitor email and other log in information provided to employees for their work. Murphy told the Yellow Sheet, “They have the right to know what you’re doing on there, and if you don’t want them to know, don’t do it on there. It’s pretty simple.”
“Say you have given your access information to Facebook to the HR director of your employer and then there is a falling out between you and the HR director,” says Murphy. “That individual could login and make comments under your name and it would be almost impossible to defend yourself against that incident.”
Currently six states have passed legislation similar to Senate Bill 1411 and 26 states are considering it this year.
Senator Murphy is currently in his fifth term of service to the citizens of the northwest valley. He is known as a strong supporter of school choice, tax reform and foster care/adoption issues. Senator Murphy is currently Chairman of the Senate Judiciary committee.