Hands Off My Tweets: Washington State Senate Proposes Ban on Mandatory Disclosure of Employee Social Networking Passwords

On January 30th, the Washington state senate introduced a bill which would prohibit public and private employers within the state from requiring employees to turn over their online social-network account passwords.  Senate Bill 5211.  As we previously blogged, a number of states have passed or are considering similar legislation, which ostensibly is aimed at protecting employees’ privacy in their online but non-public social networking profiles.Though well-intentioned, the Washington legislature and those of other statues must carefully tailor such privacy laws to prevent unfair consequences.  Employers will be strained, for example, to monitor or enforce current employees’ use of employer intellectual or other property in employees’ networking profiles.

To read this blog post click here