Your job is now banned from doing this in New York State. Lawmakers believe this is a major win to help keep your personal life protected from your job.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a new bill that is aimed at protecting workers’ rights in New York State.
Workers Privacy Protected In New York State
Recently, Gov. Hochul signed a bill (S. 2518/A. 836) that:
Prohibits employers from requesting or requiring username, login information, and passwords, of personal accounts as a condition of hiring, as a condition of employment, or for use in a disciplinary action.
Lawmakers note that the explosion of social media has made personal information easier to access than ever before.
Social Media Explosion
However, some employers make hiring and disciplinary decisions far beyond information that prospective and current employees share publicly.
This includes requesting and demanding the username and password information for social media sites from their prospective and current employees and the login information to email accounts and other extremely personal accounts.
Assemblymember Dinowitz sponsored the bill in the assembly.
Requesting and demanding this information constitutes a serious invasion of privacy on behalf of the employer and may lead to issues of unfair and discriminatory hiring and admissions practices.
Employees have the right to make this information either public or private. They should have every right to maintain this privacy when it comes to their workplace or during an interview or admissions process and should not have to submit to this request for fear they will lose their job or not be hired otherwise.
Lawmakers add this new law means New York State workers won’t have to agree to their boss’s demands when it comes to social media.
State Senator Jessica Ramos said, “As our lives move increasingly online, we have to set guardrails around a worker’s privacy. With this legislation, we are leveling out an imbalance that puts workers in a position of feeling like they have to agree to demands their boss demands of them.”