"Want a job? Give us your user names and passwords"
Applying for a job with the City of Bozeman? You may be asked to provide more personal information than you expected… to be considered for a job applicants must provide log-in information and passwords for social network sites in which they participate.
"Please list any and all, current personal or business websites, web pages or memberships on any Internet-based chat rooms, social clubs or forums, to include, but not limited to: Facebook, Google, Yahoo, YouTube.com, MySpace, etc.," the City form states. There are then three lines where applicants can list the Web sites, their user names and log-in information and their passwords…
No one has ever removed his or her name from consideration for a job due to the request, Sullivan added.
More details at the
Montana News Station.
This is a bit scarry... I understand when an employer blocks access to such websites during working hours, or even may ask for your usernames, especially if you are going to represent the city in any way, but passwords... This is very sensitive... They could log on to your account, scarry!
ReplyDeleteI would venture far beyond scary. This would strike me as criminal invasion of privacy. No one has ever removed their name from consideration?
ReplyDeleteI have to ask when level of intelligence these people have and would you really want to employ them in the first place.
Also, what is the local unemployment rate?
I would sooner go hungry and eat out of bins than divulge any of that information, on principal alone.
It's troubling that no one has kicked up more of a fuss and that Mr Sullivan is so nonchalant about the whole affair.
What happens if you do not supply the information? He says no one has removed their application, but surely several have declined to release the information, what then? Do they not get the job based on that alone?
Disgusting. Talk about sleepwalking into a surveillance society.
And I live in Britain, the home of surveillance.