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Fired for Refusing to Reveal Facebook Password

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ImpulsE69 said:
Being asked and/or forced to give out your passwords to ANYTHING that is not directly related and/or on your work network should be illegal. Period.
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Debatable but irrelevant. As I read the story, although it isn't 100% clear, that isn't what happened.
“He asked me three times if he could view my Facebook and I repeatedly said I was not OK with that,” Hester told WSBT.
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She didn't have to give her password up for that to happen. To complicate matters, she posted a picture of a coworker.

Hope she looses.

-KeithP
 
The more i think about this, the more clear it becomes to me that this will very shortly become as illegal as asking about someones religious believes or marital status.

This will not happen after about 2013, if that late.

MotionMan
 
KeithP said:
Debatable but irrelevant. As I read the story, although it isn't 100% clear, that isn't what happened.


She didn't have to give her password up for that to happen. To complicate matters, she posted a picture of a coworker.

Hope she looses.

-KeithP
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It was probably requested that her Facebook page be shown while she was logged in. That is the functional equivalent of giving up your password and, I believe, makes little to no legal difference.

Also, it is simply against the TOS to give up your password. Your employer cannot force you to breach an agreement and subject you to a lawsuit.

MotionMan
 
I wonder what her union has to say about this?

Apparently they're working without a contract, but USUALLY, that means all terms and conditions of the expired contract remain in effect...Of course, I don't know if she's a paying union member or just leeching off the hard work of the bargaining unit employees...:biggrin:
 
pontifex said:
i really don't get the thought process behind what makes someone think this is any where near ok?
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Yeah, it really blows my mind. I'm going to be looking for work in the Portland area in a couple of months.. It will be interesting to see if it comes up. I'll kindly tell anyone who asks for my personal passwords to go pound sand. Completely unacceptable.

I mean what's next? They're going to want my personal email account passwords? The passwords to my personal computers so they can remote in? I mean really, who is the genius that decided it was OK to proceed down this nearly vertical slope?
 
Teacher's aides are generally not a part of the teacher's union. In our district, the support staff do have a union, but their union is completely independent of the teacher's union. While I can't speak for every state, I doubt that teacher's aides are part of the teacher's unions in Michigan as well. Whether or not she actually belongs to a union isn't stated in that article.

However, where are all those people who come into union threads saying "employers should be able you to fire you for anything they want", "right to work states", etc.? Cases like this indicate that it won't be long before the pendulum starts swinging back the other way toward unionization for employees to protect their rights from employers (who are beginning to have an excess of power again.) Then, the unions will be too powerful and the pendulum will swing back again.
 
Lots of places demand you give them a urine sample, some even require a blood test, background checks aren't all that uncommon, and a credit check is apparently necessary to get a job at many places now. I see this as just the next step in the process. I assume that at some point a list of every website you've ever visited will be required as part of an interview as well.
Get used to it, this is you're life, this is your future. You will conform and you will supply all the information that's asked for. You'll turn over every single piece of information about your life and convince yourself that it's really not all that bad.
For doing this, you'll get a reasonably well paying job and a lot of false security. It's a win win deal.
 
Greenman said:
Lots of places demand you give them a urine sample, some even require a blood test, background checks aren't all that uncommon, and a credit check is apparently necessary to get a job at many places now. I see this as just the next step in the process. I assume that at some point a list of every website you've ever visited will be required as part of an interview as well.
Get used to it, this is you're life, this is your future. You will conform and you will supply all the information that's asked for. You'll turn over every single piece of information about your life and convince yourself that it's really not all that bad.
For doing this, you'll get a reasonably well paying job and a lot of false security. It's a win win deal.
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Yep, drug testing is just as ridiculous. It's amazing that nobody sees it.
 
Dumbass. Not only is she going to lose, she's going to set precedent in favor of employers.

When you're making your employer look bad, you had damn well better be sure it can't be traced back to you. Otherwise you're going to get fired for being a liability.
 
Seems like a growing trend. Gotta love living in America where privacy is non existent and you are legally required to hand out your passwords. This is just the beginning.

Facebook today, email, banking etc tomorrow. I hope this trend does not end up coming here. I have nothing to hide, but the principle of it is just so wrong.

In response to all this Facebook should add a plausible deniability feature, where if you login with a certain password the account will be different. Then again employers would catch on and demand the "real" password.
 
MotionMan said:
It was probably requested that her Facebook page be shown while she was logged in. That is the functional equivalent of giving up your password and, I believe, makes little to no legal difference.

Also, it is simply against the TOS to give up your password. Your employer cannot force you to breach an agreement and subject you to a lawsuit.

MotionMan
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Stipulating that you have more legal experience than I do, I still have to question the assertion that showing the Facebook page while logged in is functionally equivalent to granting them the password.

In the latter case, the school official would have unfettered access to her page until such time as she was able to change the password. As a practical matter, this would, for the majority of the population, also mean that the official would have access to many of her other online accounts (the vast majority of people use the same password over and over again). This just isn't the same thing as her sitting at the keyboard while the official looks over her shoulder. If she's the one sitting at the keyboard "driving" she need not reveal the actual password, and she can log out immediately rather than trusting the school official to do so later.

I'm not sure that the distinction will be meaningful within the set of facts at hand in this case, but I can definitely see reasons for differentiating between the two actions (if only insofar as deeming a demand for the password itself as a greater offense).

ZV
 
It needs to be taken care of swiftly, although our government is so out of touch and willing to give away freedoms these days, I'm not sure the outlook is good.
 
Straight from Facebooks EULA:

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.

Give them this link: http://www.facebook.com/legal/terms

Tell employers who want it to sue FB and change the EULA and you will 'think about it'.
 
Zenmervolt said:
Stipulating that you have more legal experience than I do, I still have to question the assertion that showing the Facebook page while logged in is functionally equivalent to granting them the password.

In the latter case, the school official would have unfettered access to her page until such time as she was able to change the password. As a practical matter, this would, for the majority of the population, also mean that the official would have access to many of her other online accounts (the vast majority of people use the same password over and over again). This just isn't the same thing as her sitting at the keyboard while the official looks over her shoulder. If she's the one sitting at the keyboard "driving" she need not reveal the actual password, and she can log out immediately rather than trusting the school official to do so later.

I'm not sure that the distinction will be meaningful within the set of facts at hand in this case, but I can definitely see reasons for differentiating between the two actions (if only insofar as deeming a demand for the password itself as a greater offense).

ZV
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The thing that comes to mind for me is that facebook profiles tend to reveal a lot of personal stuff, including things related to disabilities that the employer may or may not already know about.
 
EULA's don't really mean anything to the government though, especially if it's something they don't agree with. If it's something copyright related, then it's a different story.
 
SarcasticDwarf said:
The thing that comes to mind for me is that facebook profiles tend to reveal a lot of personal stuff, including things related to disabilities that the employer may or may not already know about.
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If she's the one "driving" she can avoid revealing most of that if they just want her to show them the one picture.

I'm not saying that I think an employer should do either, mind you. All I'm saying is that there does seem to be a distinction between asking to see a certain part of your profile and asking for your password, with the latter being "worse."

ZV
 
Do I understand this correctly?

This lady posted a picture of a coworker with her pants pulled down to her Facebook account and shared it with her friends.

But after one of her Facebook friends complained, she won't share the photo with the administration because that would violate her privacy?

People really believe that they can post private photos online? And later claim that they are private...

Amazing!
Uno
 
unokitty said:
Do I understand this correctly?

This lady posted a picture of a coworker with her pants pulled down to her Facebook account and shared it with her friends.

But after one of her Facebook friends complained, she won't share the photo with the administration because that would violate her privacy?

People really believe that they can post private photos online? And later claim that they are private...

Amazing!
Uno
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That is why I believe this time it's a valid reason as all the teacher sex scandals could cause a issue if they did not investigate it and probably want to see what teacher it was doing this.

Also the title is misleading as they never asked for her password but wanted to see whose picture it was it sounded like.
 
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