CISPA password rule gives employers permission to commit identity theft

Congress recently added an amendment to the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, more commonly known as CISPA, which would allow employers to demand social media passwords from their employees as a condition of employment. However, what your boss can do with that information is shocking.

In addition to giving a virtual stranger access to personal information, with your password, your boss can not only impersonate you on social media, they can change that password and lock you out of your own account. This could easily be considered a form of identity theft, and job-hungry workers may be powerless to stop it.

And what happens if an employee has the same password on other accounts that contain banking and credit card information? By the time the employee realizes that they just inadvertently gave a virtual stranger password access to their financial records, it might be too late to stop full-fledged identity theft.

CBS reports that employers want the passwords for Facebook and other social media accounts so they can “learn as much as they can about workers, trying to avoid costly hires.”

Some believe that this is a weak excuse to bring Big Brother into the workplace in deplorable ways.

In reality, an employer does not need social media passwords to “learn” about workers. They only need them if they have an interest in identity theft and employee impersonation.

Let’s say for example, the boss doesn’t personally like a particular employee, but doesn’t have any grounds to discipline them on the basis of their quality work. With password access, that employer can legally hack their account and add a slanderous comment against the employer on their Facebook page or Twitter account. The boss can then turn around and use the phony comment as an excuse to fire them. The potential for discrimination is endless.

In reality, most people have enough of their privacy violated on the internet these days, it only takes simple “search result” query to uncover all an employer should have any right to know about their workers.

Giving an employer the legal right to demand private passwords goes against everything American freedom is supposed to be about. Americans already have the government invading their bedrooms, they don’t need Congress to give anyone permission to commit identity theft.

The big legal question here is, do employers have the right to ‘spy’ on their employees’ personal activities, which may have nothing to do with their work? More importantly, does the government have the right to give your boss the ability to access your personal accounts and literally take control over your social media identity?