Congressman Bobby L. Rush co-sponsors Password Protection Act

 

Bill bars employer access to social media passwords and personal email

 

By Chinta Strausberg

 

Because it is difficult enough to get a job today, Congressman Bobby L. Rush (D-1^st) has co-sponsored the Password Protection Act of 2012 to halt a growing interest by some employers in accessing employee and job applicant personal information through employees’ confidential user names and passwords for social media web sites and personal email.

Reached in Washington, D.C., Tim Robinson, senior policy counsel and legislative director for Rep. Rush, said, “The Congressman believes that job applicants and employees should not have to forfeit their privacy in order to get or to hold down a job,” said Tim Robinson, senior policy counsel and legislative director for Rep. Rush.

“Our elected representatives ought to be very concerned that over 70 percent of recruiters, Human Resource professionals and hiring managers freely admit to having rejected job applicants based on their online reputations; yet this same 70 percent also raised valid concerns about the authenticity of some of this information.

“These uses are not congruent with the privacy expectations of US Internet users; only 7 percent of users believe that information about them actually affected their job searches,” said Robinson.

Robinson said that Rush has been very active on privacy and data security matters for many years. “Not only has Mr. Rush been a thought leader on privacy and data security policy in this country and across the globe, but he has also authored comprehensive consumer privacy legislation, known as the Best Practices Act, which was originally introduced in the 111th Congress and re-introduced in the 112^th Congress,” explained Robinson.

The Password Protection Act covers employer-employee relationships, unlike the Best Practices Act, which would cover the commercial use, sharing and disclosure of people’s private information.

The Password Protection Act of 2012 would strengthen current law to ban employers from requiring or forcing employees to provide access to their private accounts. It would ban an employer from forcing prospective or current employees to provide access to their private accounts as a precondition to being hired. It would also ban employers from discriminating or using retaliation against either a prospective or current employee if that employee refuses to provide access to a password-protected account.

The Password Protection Act would prohibit only adverse employment related actions as a consequence of an employee’s failure to provide access to their own private accounts. But the proposed legislation would preserve the rights of employers to permit social networking within the office on a voluntary basis.

The draft bill would also set policies for employer-operated computer systems, and it holds employees accountable for stealing data from their employers. Employers who violate the Password Protection Act could be subject to financial penalties.

The Password Protection Act, H.R. 5684, was immediately referred to the House Judiciary Committee, which is chaired by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX). Others representatives supporting this legislation include Rep. Martin Heinrich (NM-1), who authored the bill, as well as eleven other original co-sponsors (including Rep. Rush) who represent an assortment of states and regions across the United States.

But, Rush and other Congressmen are not the only elected lawmakers who are zeroing in on restricting employers from demanding applicant and  employee social media user names and passwords.

Similar bills have been introduced in the Delaware State House and in Illinois by Rep. La Shawn Ford (D-Chicago) and State Senator Toi Hutchinson (D-Chicago Heights) who told reporters: “Technology has moved faster than our laws have. There is so much private information that we do through social media. If you protect any of that information behind the passwords, then it is absolutely appropriate that no one should be able to have it,” said Hutchinson.

 For additional information, call:

Timothy Robinson

Senior Policy Counsel & Legislative Director

Office of Congressman Bobby L. Rush

United States House of Representatives

2268 Rayburn Office House Building

Washington, DC 20515

(202) 225-4372 (main)

timothy.robinson@mail.house.gov

Chinta Strausberg is a Journalist of more than 33-years, a former political reporter and a current PCC Network talk show host. You can e-mail Strausberg at: Chintabernie@aol.com.