Can Your Employer Snoop Around Your Facebook and Twitter Pages?

Can Your Employer Snoop Around Your Facebook and Twitter Pages? Yes and no. It depends on how invasive your employer is being in terms of your personal privacy.

Did your manager or prospective employer ask if you would log into your Facebook or Twitter account to show them around? Has your boss asked for your Facebook password? Have you been fired over a personal message on social media that was not visible to the public or disclosed by a third party? If the answer to any of these questions is “yes,” then your employer probably broke the law.

Social media: Some people are tired of hearing about it, and others are tired of writing about it, but social media seems like it is here to stay. Facebook and Twitter are prevalent, effective, and often dangerous modes of communication. How many times have we seen stories about someone getting fired because of something posted on Facebook? Social media has recently cast legal grey areas with respect to the employee’s right to privacy.

As far as public Facebook and Twitter posts go, those are subject to the same standards as other modes of communication. Employers cannot discriminatorily punish an employee for something posted on Facebook or Twitter. However, if an employee posts something nasty or offensive, then the employer has every right to take appropriate actions.

But what if you are being punished for a private message that you sent to another person? If your employer logged into your Facebook account to see that private message, then your employer probably broke the law. Even if your manager asked you to log into your own facebook account to allow him or her to look at a message, that is against the law, and you have a legal cause of action against your employer,

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There are federal and Maryland state laws that protect the Maryland employee from invasive employer social media snooping. Federal law 18 U.S.C §§ 2701 – 2707 provides the basic protection of electronically-stored information. Federal law 18 U.S.C. § 1030 is the codified Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which makes illegal the employer’s “hacking” of an employee’s email or social media account. Maryland electronic storage laws CTS & Jud. Proc. §§ 10-401 – 10-414 provide state protections and remedies for unauthorized access to stored electronic information. These laws will NOT protect you from your boss snooping in your work e-mail, but they WILL provide a legal cause of action for you if your boss goes through your personal email, Facebook messages, or Twitter account.

In 2011, Maryland enacted Md. Code Lab.  & Empl. § 3-711, a law that specifically prohibits employers from accessing, or even requesting to access, any personal email, social media, or other electronic communication accounts.* These laws also apply to social media accounts when accessed through your phone.

If you are being interviewed and as a part of the interview process you are asked to log into facebook (or any other social media), or provide your social media password, then the company that is interviewing you has broken the law, and you have a cause of action against them.

If you are currently employed and any manager, or employee under management control, asks for access to any of your personal social media accounts, then you also have a cause of action against your employer.

*The same law prohibits Maryland from using credit-checks to determine eligibility of employment.

If you have any questions, please leave a comment. If you feel like you have any issues with your employer, contact an attorney at The Goldson Law Office using a contact form to the right of this page, or call us at 1-800-267-4914.

To read more about Maryland labor and employment law, see The Goldson Law Office’s Labor and Employment Law page.