On August 1, 2012, the Illinois Governor Pat Quinn signed an amendment to the Illinois Right to Privacy in the Workplace Act which prohibits employers in this state from requiring logins and passwords to jobseekers' profiles on social networks. The law in its new form will take effect from the beginning of 2013. The law responds to the growing volume of cases when especially public and government institutuions demand passwords to job-seekers' profiles so that they could be better examined.
After Maryland, when this practice was banned in the first half of this year, Illinois is the second U.S. state to follow. Similar legislation is beeing addressed at the federal level, too. Two federal senators turned to the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to review whether this "new disturbing trend" did not violate the existing laws and how to manage it.
Facebook director for privacy Erin Egan urged the social network's users not to tell employers the passwords to their profiles. According to her, employers have no right to request the passwords because it is not in accordance with the terms of use of the service.
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