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New Law Protects Privacy Of Employee Social Media

A J Cann
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Flickr.com

A new law that took effect Nov. 1 makes restrictions on what social media information current and prospective employees should be required to give employers.

HB2372 prevents employers from requiring employees to provide them with their social media logins, passwords and other information. It also makes it illegal for employers to require the information of job applicants as a condition of employment. 

Sen. Kyle Loveless said the bill establishes needed guidelines for what has become a new, common method of personal communication.

“A generation or further back, if you were working someplace and you brought personal correspondence or personal financial information to work and put it in your lunchbox or put it in your locker or whatever, your employer would not have the legal right to look at that and definitely not as a requirement to work there,” Loveless, R-Oklahoma City, said.

Loveless said when you get down to it, social media should not be counted differently than other types of communication and there needed to be a level playing field established, not only for the employees, but the employer.

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