想當美國公務員須先交出Facebook密碼

When Justin Bassett interviewed for a new job, he expected the usual questions about experience and references. So he was astonished when the interviewer asked for something else: his Facebook username and password。

Bassett, a New York City statistician, had just finished answering a few character questions when the interviewer turned to her computer to search for his Facebook page. But she couldn't see his private profile. She turned back and asked him to hand over his login information。

Bassett refused and withdrew his application, saying he didn't want to work for a company that would seek such personal information. But as the job market steadily improves, other job candidates are confronting the same question from prospective employers, and some of them cannot afford to say no。

In their efforts to vet applicants, some companies and government agencies are going beyond merely glancing at a person's social networking profiles and instead asking to log in as the user to have a look around。

"It's akin to requiring someone's house keys," said Orin Kerr, a George Washington University law professor and former federal prosecutor who calls it "an egregious privacy violation."

Questions have been raised about the legality of the practice, which is also the focus of proposed legislation in Illinois and Maryland that would forbid public agencies from asking for access to social networks。

Since the rise of social networking, it has become common for managers to review publically available Facebook profiles, Twitter accounts and other sites to learn more about job candidates. But many users, especially on Facebook, have their profiles set to private, making them available only to selected people or certain networks。

Companies that don't ask for passwords have taken other steps — such as asking applicants to friend human resource managers or to log in to a company computer during an interview. Once employed, some workers have been required to sign non-disparagement agreements that ban them from talking negatively about an employer on social media。

Asking for a candidate's password is more prevalent among public agencies, especially those seeking to fill law enforcement positions such as police officers or 911 dispatchers。當賈斯汀•巴西特參加求職面試時，他以爲會被問到工作經驗、推薦信等常規問題，因此當被問到Facebook用戶名和密碼時，他大吃一驚。

巴西特是紐約市的一名統計員，在回答了一些性格問題後，面試者轉向她自己的電腦，搜索他的Facebook主頁，但無法看到他的個人資料。她轉過身，問他登錄信息。

巴西特拒絕了她，並要回了自己的求職申請，說他不想在這樣一個索要私人信息的公司工作。但隨着就業市場持續改善，其他的應聘者也會被未來的僱主問到同樣的問題，其中有些人無法拒絕。

一些公司和政府機構在審覈應聘者時，不僅會瀏覽個人的社交網站資料，還要以使用者的身份登錄賬戶一看究竟。

美國喬治華盛頓大學法律教授、前聯邦檢察官奧林•科爾稱，“侵犯隱私的行爲太過分了。”他說：“這無異於要別人家門鑰匙。”

有人質疑這種行爲的合法性，這也是伊利諾斯州和馬里蘭州的一項禁止公共機構索要社交網站隱私信息的提案的焦點。

自從社交網站風靡以來，主管查看公開的Facebook資料、推特賬戶和其他社交網站，以更多地瞭解應聘者，這種行爲已經很常見。但是很多用戶，特別是Facebook用戶將資料設爲私密，這使主管只能看到特定的人或者特定網站上的資料。

不要密碼的公司採取了其他措施，比如要求應聘者將人力資源主管加爲好友，或者在面試時在公司的電腦上登錄社交網站。一旦錄用，公司還會要求員工簽署不損害名譽協定，禁止他們在社交網站上貶低僱主。

公共機構索要社交網站密碼的情況更常見，特別是一些執法部門的職位，比如警察或者911調度員。