Philly councilman wants restrictions on requesting social media passwords

A Philadelphia City Councilman says employers should not be able to tap into your social media accounts as a condition of employment.

Philadelphia Councilman Bill Greenlee has proposed a bill  designed to stop employees or job applicants from being forced to turn over their social media passwords.

“We think it’s a protection of privacy of an individual because there could be things on that site that are the person’s own business like their religion, religious beliefs on issues, their sexual orientation, whatever that really their employer or prospective employer really doesn’t need to know,” he said.

Greenlee says there is no way to ban employers or prospective employers from using information from Facebook or Twitter since it is public.

“If there is a way to get that, they could still do that,” he said.

The bill is similar to one currently under consideration in Harrisburg. New Jersey and Delaware have already banned colleges from requiring social media logins from applicants.