Should Job Seekers Have to Give Up Their Facebook Passwords? With the rise of social networking, it has become commonplace for managers to review publically available Facebook profiles, Twitter accounts and other sites to learn more about job candidates. But many users, especially on Facebook, have their profiles set to private, making them available only to selected people or certain networks (read: most likely not a potential employer).

A new trend, as pointed out in this Associated Press story that is making the rounds on the Internet, is employers asking interviewees to log in to Facebook and/or hand over their password before they even have the job (during the interview process).

“In their efforts to vet applicants, some companies and government agencies are going beyond merely glancing at a person’s social networking profiles and instead asking to log in as the user to have a look around.”

This comes on the heels of a study released Monday by Eurocom Worldwide that says 1 in 5 technology firms has rejected a job applicant because of social media.

The main question here: is it legal? More from the AP story:

“Giving out Facebook login information violates the social network’s terms of service. But those terms have no real legal weight, and experts say the legality of asking for such information remains murky…The Department of Justice regards it as a federal crime to enter a social networking site in violation of the terms of service, but during recent congressional testimony, the agency said such violations would not be prosecuted.”

What do you think? Should potential employers have access to your Facebook profiles? Or is that private?

-LD

[MSNBC, Eurocom]

Photo: Getty Images