Comment by wccrawford | Hacker News Reader

Comment by wccrawford | Hacker News Reader

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I'm usually on the side of 'government, get out of my life', but this practice is unusually unfair and far too useful for the companies to think there will continue to be the option of 'work somewhere else'.

Companies wouldn't dream of searching my car or house before hiring me. How they ever got the idea that they should be able to require my passwords is beyond me.

Social media would not have been the last step, either. Email passwords would have been next. And then searching personal computers, especially cellphones and laptops.

And once they were drunk with that power, what else would they require? "Permission" to tap your phones? That sounds ridiculous right now, but a year ago it would have been ridiculous for a company to ask for your personal passwords. And now we're having to enact laws against it.

I hope other states are quick to follow on this... Or that the federal government gets their heads out of their asses and passes it nation-wide. Wasn't that the whole point of the bill of rights? To protect freedom, nation-wide?

It is a big deal, but no so big that we are on a slippery slope. There are many things that could happen to combat it.

Employees or prospective employees agree to give up said passwords only if hiring manager/company gives them their social media account passwords. I.E - If I have nothing to hide, you have nothing to hide. You know employer an employee can never be to sure who they are working for ...

An entire side industry might spring up entirely geared toward managing and tracking who sees what on your social networks or, social networks might respond by letting you set up two logins - one for safe log in that only you know and one for compromised login that you give to an employer when they compromise you.

I hope that long before the states need to pass more laws like this that employees or prospective employees would publicly avoid business/government agencies asking for social media logins. "I really wanted that great job at Great Company, but it has asked me for my social media logins and stated that it would hold the things I did as a teenager against me."

The public perception that it is wrong to ask an employee/prospective employee is very strong and the more negative marketing associated to an employer gets around that will not only keep other employees away but it will chip away the confidence existing employees have that they work for a good employer.

I'm betting you got downvoted for the 'if you have nothing to hide' comment.

Everyone has something to hide. And even if they were some miraculous existence that didn't, their privacy is still their right.

Sure, something might eventually crop up to stop it, but in the meantime, it's happening now.

And finally, when I suggest that people stop working for unethical or abusive companies, they reply, "But people need to eat." ... Yeah. So if they'll put up with that level of abuse, there's no way they're going to refuse a job on the grounds of 'password privacy abuse'.

True, everyone has something to hide. My point was that if the manager/company interviewing me want's me to show them everything by asking for my login/pwd's they should be willing to provide me with the same out of mutual respect when I ask. If they are willing to ask me to provide that personal detail yet are not willing to reciprocate (on both the managerial and company level) , what does that tell me about the value they place on their employees? Our relationship is already getting off to a poor start.

I'm all with you when you suggest that people stop working for unethical/abusive companies. One way to figure out how much they value their employees is during the interview process when you have the chance to ask them smart questions. Employment is a two way street and the more tools employees have to make it an equal give/take relationship the better for all.

I would appreciate knowing why I got down voted for this. Thanks.

I have up voted you to cancel the down vote someone gave you. I don't agree with your comment, however. You've overlooked that in the overwhelming majority of cases, the person applying for the job is not on an equal footing with the employer. If the employer insists on having my passwords before they will continue interviewing me, and I counter that I will need to see the hiring manager's passwords before letting them interview me--he's just going to reject me and go to the next candidate.

Thanks for giving me the vote. You are right - the person interviewing is not on equal footing with the hiring manager. I guess that I was thinking in aggregate, if enough people will see the employer/employee relationship as an equal partnership this should not be an issue.

As it stands now though, you are correct there is very much an imbalance between employers and employees in favor of the employers.

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