Internet Privacy: Illinois joins other states in protecting employee Facebook logins

Illinois now counts itself among Maryland (and possibly in the future California) among states that have or intend to ban employers from requesting their employees’ Facebook logins. According to the Washington Post:

Gov. Pat Quinn signed the law Wednesday at the Illinois Institute of Technology, where several students lamented that online snooping by bosses has caused some to lose out on jobs and forced others to temporarily deactivate their online profiles.
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In their efforts to vet job applicants, some companies and government agencies have started asking for passwords to log in to a prospective employee’s accounts on social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter. Civil liberties groups, social media users and others have criticized the practice as a serious invasion of privacy, likening it to handing over the keys to your house.

As I have mentioned in previous posts on this issue, these laws are not just good for the employees, they are also protecting the employer companies from themselves as well as their overzealous managing staff from potential legal exposure.