It’s a story that is told again and again today: employers looking to keep a close eye on their employees by monitoring their Facebook accounts and, in some cases, accessing them by requesting account passwords.
This practice, however, may soon come to an end, if Facebook’s Chief Privacy Officer on Policy Erin Egan has anything to do with it.
As it turns out, that social networking giant is tinkering with new measures that will help protect users from these privacy violations.
“In recent months,” Egan says, “we’ve seen a distressing increase in reports of employers or others seeking to gain inappropriate access to people’s Facebook profiles or private information. This practice undermines the privacy expectations and the security of both the user and the user’s friends. It also potentially exposes the employer who seeks this access to unanticipated legal liability.”
Facebook takes your privacy seriously. We’ll take action to protect the privacy and security of our users, whether by engaging policymakers or, where appropriate, by initiating legal action, including by shutting down applications that abuse their privileges.
While we will continue to do our part, it is important that everyone on Facebook understands they have a right to keep their password to themselves, and we will do our best to protect that right.
Have you ever been spied on via social media or asked to turn over your Facebook account password at work?
