Illinois Law Prohibits Request of Passwords
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NEW ILLINOIS LAW
I want to notify you of a new law taking affect January 1, 2013 that will affect you and your employees.
ILLINOIS LAW PROHIBITS REQUEST OF PASSWORDS
Effective on January 1, 2013 a new law takes effect known as the “Right to Privacy in the Workplace Act”, 820 ILCS 55110. Signed by Governor Quinn onAugust 1, 2012, the law prohibits employers from requesting employee passwords to social media sites from potential and current employees.
In part the law provides: “It shall be unlawful for any employer to request or require any employee or prospective employee to provide any passwordor other related account information in order to gain access to the employee‘s or prospective employee’s account or profile on a social networking websiteor to demand access in any manner to an employee’s or prospective employee’s account or profile on a social networking website.“
The law applies to Illinois employers of all sizes and is enforced by the Illinois Department of Labor. This law, if violated, provides a private right ofaction for individuals to sue employers in state courts.
It sounds to me like it might be time for employers to review their Employee Policies. If I may be of service in that regard, please do not hesitate call me directly.
Our 2nd (and last) item we thought you might want to know more about is:
FTC assesses progress on children’s app privacy: Mobile software companies are being investigated to determine if they violated the privacy rights of children. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) just released a report (December 10, 2012) saying that mobile applications aimed at children were still not providing adequate notification regarding data collection.
The findings come ahead of an important vote at the FTC on new online child privacy rules aimed at curbing companies from tracking children on mobile devices.
The agency and the Obama administration have been pushing for some time now, for stronger protections for children who are spending more time than ever online.
In this rapidly changing technology world, this type of tracking is happening to children (and adults) and we need to keep a vigilant watch on our children’s activities on the Internet, to avoid predators, spam, identity theft and other criminal activities.
We all need to be vigilant of our rights to protect the privacy of our personal information, especially as we move more rapidly into the “cloud” for our storage and computing.