Rosemary Bennett, Social Affairs Correspondent
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A powerful coalition of children’s charities is urging ministers to make it illegal for companies to trawl Facebook and other social networking websites for information on prospective recruits.
They say that employers and educational establishments are known to be browsing the internet looking for “digital dirt” on young people who have applied for positions.
The eight charities acted partly in response to a report in The Times that revealed one in five employers used the internet to check on candidates, and two thirds of those who did said that their decisions were influenced by what they found.
A senior tutor at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, had also said that he used Facebook to check up discreetly on applications for a college position.
The charities, including the NSPCC, the Children’s Society and NCH, said that the call for a new law is part of their wider concerns about online safety for children.
John Carr, secretary of the Children’s Charities’ Coalition on Internet Safety, who is coordinating the campaign, said that pictures or gossip up-loaded during the teenage years should not be used against a young person ten years later.
“When young people put up their personal profiles they are not thinking about job or university applications. Typically, they are simply talking to their mates. Employers or admissions tutors who delve into these places are being highly and inappropriately intrusive. It’s a bit like looking at someone’s diary,” Mr Carr told The Times.
“A world where even a 14-year-old has to think twice before posting an adolescent poem suddenly looks very unappealing and increases the pressure on children and young people to conform to a set of tightly focused adult norms.”
The children’s charities are seeking clarification on whether discrimination legislation could be used to stop companies from using social networking sites for recruitment purposes.
Existing law requires equal opportunities for recruitment, and a system where some candidates have sites and others do not may breach that law. If that is not sufficient, the charities have been advised that data protection law could be tightened to require an employer to seek permission to access online data in the same way that they get permission to approach referees.
Margaret Moran, Labour MP for Luton South, is to lead the campaign in Parliament. She is discussing with Commons authorities the terms of a ten-minute rule Bill to tighten legislation. She has also written to James Purnell, the Work and Pensions Secretary, asking him to give his opinion on whether it is legitimate for employers to use information from social networking sites for recruitment.
“Social networking sites were never intended as a factual reference point for young people,” Ms Moran said. “The technology allows unverified content to go up very easily. It is simple to load up spoof profiles and meddle with images. Companies have no way to verify what is up there.”
The charities have approached the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) for support. Deborah Fernon, resourcing adviser at the CIPD, said at this stage the institute would not favour a ban, although she advised companies to be careful if they used sites for recruitment purposes.
“I wouldn’t want it to become illegal because in some industries, advertising and IT for example, personal sites have become almost a CV in itself, and that might become more commonplace,” she said.
“But we would warn companies that in the quest to find the right person for a job, social networking sites could be at best irrelevant and at worst misleading. Also, good practice requires that every candidate is treated equally, which means all candidates would have to have similar profiles before information is used, otherwise it would be discriminatory.”
Recently the charities won a powerful backer when Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the British scientist who created the world wide web, said that online data and web history belong to the individual who put them there. But he warned young people to think carefully about what they put on their sites, because others saw it as common property.
David Smith, the Deputy Information Commissioner, has also pointed out that despite the privacy settings offered by service providers, more than half of young people make their profile pages public. Mr Smith said: “The cost to a person’s future can be very high if something undesirable is found by the increasing number of education institutions and employers using the internet as a tool to vet potential students or employees.”
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With employers being absolutely responsible for the conduct of their staff, and employees more willing to sue employers for the slightest reason employers are perfectly entitled to take all reasonable steps to ensure they employ sane and morally responsible persons.
If your social web site entries (made av available for public scrutiny by yourself) reveal that you are a "intellectually challenged", or someone out to make a fast buck in any way possible that is your own stupid fault.
Glenn, wales,
You can 'ban' employers from trawling facebook, but they're still going to do it - how on earth do you enforce something like that? The employer doesn't have to reveal he's seen your profile, it's just another factor taken into account as he forms his judgment of you. And while ever people are stupid enough to leave their profiles open to everyone on their network (and now that there are regional networks, such as London, your profile is open to a lot more people) employers are going to make the most of the opportunity to see what candidates are really like in their spare time. Close your profile to anyone who isn't a friend and detag pictures other people have posted of you doing things you'd rather keep private. It's as simple as that.
Nick, London,
Whilst many people may have a different persona at work than the one they use at home, or with friends, an employer will want to know the type of information that a potential employee is willing to publish to the world.
Provided the employer does not hack into, or otherwise access content to which the general public has no right of access, then there should be no problem here. Indeed, you should expect to be checked out.
If you have put your teenage hellcat days behind you then it is a good idea to delete your online material at the same time that you remove the nose stud and dress to cover the tatoo.
Employers will use any means possible to establish the reality behind the interview guff. Whilst there may be more than one side to a picture of you seeming to attack a policeman, if that picture is on your facebook site under the description "kill the pigs" you may not be an ideal candidate for a big law firm.
Bob, Reading,
I'm using my Facebook & LinkedIn profiles specifically so potential employers can see I am a serious professional. I fully expect them to look me up, they would be negligent if they didn't.
Liz, Bristol,
Not old Jon Carr again. This husband of a Labour peer jumps on every digital bandwagon going. Nice consultancy work if you can get it, but should they really be spending their government grants on such rubbish. This "powerful" coalition exists to scare people so it can carry on being funded in a very comfortable sinecure. Outrageous!
MarkS, Bath, England
in response to the two previous comments I'd like to say that I think it is a good idea to disallow companies to use information taken from personal web pages in interview processes. Regardless of wether they're left public or not they are still an indication of your personal life, not your professional, if indeed it was you that created the site. It would be like a potential employer standing listening to a conversation you're having with a friend in the street, its in a public place, but does that make it alright to eavesdrop on a private conversation?
Luke, Scarborough, UK
Social netwoking websites should not be banned. However, enployers should not be allowed to trawl these websites for information. Surely it is invasion of privacy.
Hamad Lone, London, England
Well employers can trawl facebook all they like for incriminating evidence, unless they're on your friends list all they get to see is your profile picture, keep that clean and wholesome and even if you're rivalling the marquis de sade on the debauchery front, they've got nothing.
It's MySpace you want to watch out for, they can get everything on there unless your page is set to private.
sneaky!
Katy, London, UK
Forgive me, but I thought my Facebook profile was for the viewing of people on my university "social network" and also for 3rd parties who I have specifically approved. I would be reasonably entitled to assume that the university "network" is for the exclusive viewing of those who are either university staff or students, and my consent in this situation is that my private information can be viewed by that (limited) class of persons in their capacity as students/faculty.
Surely if, say, a city accountancy or law firm which I've applied to gains access to that network in a corporate capacity then they are acting at the very best unethically, and at worst in contravention of s55 of the data protection act (obtaining data illegally?)
Matt, Southampton,
Presumably all these whiney busybodies -including the Childrenâs Charitiesâ Coalition on Internet Safety- would think it was alright, however, if the search revealed that the applicant had something vaguely dodgy in their past regarding other children?
I'm beginning to think these sort of organisations are the reason we have such high employment levels in this country - because half the workforce is being employed to tell the other half how to live their lives lives!
Homer, London,
I am an employer, I use facebook and other social networking sites to research job candidates. I also use the facebook marketplace to advertise jobs. I think rather than come to the defense of idiots who publicly post the most outrageous and shocking images and blog entries, we should encourage a modicum of modesty and personal responsibility. It's a new part of our society and people are defining THEMSELVES with what they post. I just read and extrapolate. Either don't post stuff that others might find offensive or misconstrue... or keep your profile private where employers can't see it. It's very easy to do that.
Jeffq, Pullman, WA (USA)
Its up to parents to make sure kids realize what they are doing. If you are bright enough to enter the data then you should be smart enough to reliaze what you are doing.
Its a big bad world out there, and for the kids sake they need to beware of it (but not scared of!).
Future employers is the least of the dangers
brian, Portsmouth,
So, more legislation is wanted to protect the dullards in our society.
How is it, that if you place information on public display and then this information is used against you, then it is the people who use it that are wrong.
Its about time the STOOOOPID people in society were held up as an example of how not to be!
Wake up and smell the coffee half wits!
Pete, St Albans, England
What a stupid idea. So one employee does the trawling at home. How does anyone know it is being done for a company? This 'powerful coalition of children's charities' needs to employ somebody with some idea of how the internet works before coming up with such a ludicrous idea. And employers don't employ children so what is to do with these people anyway?
Roger Tilbury, Worthing,
What absolute nonsense. The earlier in life that people understand that actions (all actions) have consequences the better. To say that reading someoneâs Facebook entry is equivalent to reading someoneâs diary is rubbish. Diaries are private documents which most people don't make available to a gazillion people on the internet, the whole point of the internet is that it is public way to share information.
Quite frankly, encouraging more openness in society is no bad thing. You can't legislate assuming every other person is a pedophile or a murderer, there's absolutely know end to that. People have got to be educated to use their brains, and develop a sense of judgment with respect to the decisions they make, and this applies as much to the decision as to with whom a parent leaves their children as to whether or not someone posts a picture of themselves vomiting up extra-strength larger on facebook
Robert Parkinson, Beiing, China
"Itâs a bit like looking at someoneâs diary"
It's not at all like looking in anyone's diaries. Except Alastair Campbell's, perhaps. A diary is a private thing. A profile on a social site is something which has been deliberately and consciously published.
In any case, if there is a problem, legislation is exactly the wrong way to tackle it. As with other attempts to legislate the Internet, the relatively good guys will obey the legislation, and the really bad guys, organised crime, will ignore it.
Ian Kemmish, Biggleswade, UK
It is a ridiculous idea to ban the use of social networking sites. It means the employers and colleges are doing their job properly if they weed out those individuals who are careless enough to leave sensitive information about themselves accessible to the general public.
Colin Smith, London, UK
A ridiculous campaign and totally unenforceable were it to succeed. If people decide to place items in a public arena they must expect them to be read by any and everyone; it does not matter whether that is on the internet or in a book or newspaper. All of these websites have ample privacy safeguards; it is up to people to take precautions themselves, not rely on government to introduce another half-baked piece of legislation.
HC, London,