We came across an interesting article from OnRec about a survey taken out to see how comfortable we Britons would be with divulging our Facebook credentials. Below, we have summarised accordingly.
In the United States, it is becoming increasingly more frequent for employers to ask for prospective candidate’s Facebook passwords. Higher degrees of privacy settings have taken away the opportunity to ‘snoop’ on job applicants and employers now want to investigate them further, by gaining access to their account. There is currently a legislation being passed in some states which will outlaw this procedure, but how would it fly in the UK?
Barker Ross conducted research and found that 91% of all people asked would refuse to divulge their Facebook password. The director of Barker Ross, Tim Sutcliffe, highlighted that if a person is able to fulfil the roles of a job then they shouldn’t be judged on their personal lives. Sutcliffe is an advocate of business oriented social media like LinkedIn and Google+ which operate more as online CVs or Resumes, rather than personal documentation of your social life.
Sutcliffe’s company also found out that women were more likely to refuse the request, with a 94.5% rejection rate whereas only 87.5% of males would refuse. There is also a correlation in education, with A-Level educated people refusing 92% of the time whereas those with a degree or higher will say no 79% of the time.
Suffice to say, Britain won’t be a breeding ground for this intrusive practice. If the Government decides to implement it, they will have to face a strong opposition from job hunters.
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