employment law discussion employer social media account access
Hi,
Here are the instructions for this discussion:
The Situation
Sally calls and sounds very worried. She indicates that the State of
Florida is considering legislation to restrict employers from accessing
the social media accounts of employees and perspective employees. You
reply, “That’s bad! This is probably a result of the senator whose
account was hacked and doubled-exposed, which caused him to lose the
election for Governor. It appears he was hacked by “hacktivists†through
his employer’s dedicated Human Resource account. Sally, you know that I
built the entire background checks for prospects and employees on that
system, and this could cause us to have an increase in HR costs, as well
as encounter legal liability for negligent hiring through dependence on
an out-sourced background check.
You can find more information about someone through a simple Internet search, since everyone so easily posts, texts, and Instagrams their lives on social media. It’s the best way to avoid hiring and rehiring employees who don’t fit the employee profile we are looking for to staff our restaurant.” Sally responds that she agrees and suggests you research the issues to determine if there is legislation that the state will replicate. “Boy-oh-boy, some people just don’t understand that no one cares about privacy anymore. If they did, why would so many people expose themselves on the Internet? It’s not like it’s in the Constitution.â€
You state, “Sally, I know you’re just kidding. But you are right, it’s not in the United States Constitution. It does not contain any explicit right to privacy. However, The Bill of Rights, expresses the concerns of James Madison along with other framers of the Constitution for protecting certain aspects of privacy. The issue of whether the Constitution actually protects the right to privacy in ways not described in the Bill of Rights is a controversial subject. Originalists often argue that there is no general right to privacy within the constitution. However, as early as 1923, the Supreme Court, recognized through decisions that the liberty given in the 14th amendment guarantees a relatively broad right of privacy.â€
“With every Internet company collecting more information on you than the CIA, (No, Sally, the real one, not your school, The Culinary Institute of America) how could there ever be an expectation of privacy?†Sally then snapped, “We better look into this right away, as there may be more to this than we think.†“Not only that,†Sally added, “our table ordering and pay APP is intended to gain access to customer’s mobile devices so they can take selfies to post to our Blog and connect with our system each time it’s sent from the device. Our advertising scheme is tied to that system. Oh my, this is really serious!â€
Your Initial Post
- Post a discussion detailing your perspective of the impact that current legislation has on this issue and add a “Pro and Con†table for six areas covered in the current legislation passed by other states.
- Use the Employer Access to Social Media Accounts Overview (DOCX) as your guide.
- Use this Pro Forma (DOCX) as a guide to post your response.
