Canadian Political Party Demands Candidate's Social Media Logins To Run For Office
from the really? dept
We recently covered a legal battle in Maryland over demands of a government agency to a prospective employee to hand over his social media usernames and passwords for a background check. Apparently the NDP political party in British Columbia thinks that all candidates running for the leadership must also hand over their passwords to all social media accounts. This came out when one of the politicians, Nicholas Simons, refused to hand over that info. He pointed out that it clearly violated his privacy, as well as the privacy of all of his friends/family on Facebook. Eventually, the party backed down and said Simons didn't have to hand over the passwords, but the Privacy Commissioner in BC has already begun an investigation into whether or not the request itself violated the law. Whether or not it violated the law, it's difficult to think of why the party would think this is a reasonable idea.
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Filed Under: canada, logins, politics, privacy, social media
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Yeah, they are the people that secretly smoke weed, have unusual sexual preferences, sneak vodka into their water bottles, have huge porn collections, etc. Everyone has something to hide, may not be illegal, but has something they dont want the community to know.
"I, for one, would prefer a self-professed used-to-be scumbag"
Eh, maybe. If the lure of easy money is too much for a "normal" politician what would a criminal do?
Ahnold S is a perfect example. Had all the money one could ask for. Ran on not being able to be bought by special interests. Got in office and what happened? Yep, sold out.
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Of course, the other side of the coin is that if you are going to use your Facebook account to represent a brand (the party), then they should have some control over the brand.
The easy solution is for him to make a new Facebook account to use during the campaign that can be controlled by the party to make sure the message stays consistent.
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> does not allow duplicate accounts.
Sure they do. A friend of mine is a somewhat famous actress and she has both a personal account under a name people other than her friends and family don't recognize and her "official" page for all the fans to "like".
Pretty common practice, actually. Shouldn't be too hard for a politician to do the same thing.
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Why, though? By taking a public job, you are using yourself to represent the brand - but the brand does not take control of every aspect of your behaviour and communications. This is the classic fallacy of treating Facebook as somehow different and separate from everything else, when really it is just another way that people interact.
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If the party doesn't want this guy to be a party member or bear the party standard, they can tell him to take a hike.
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Precisely. No need for his facebook password to do that.
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Do as I say, not as I do...
Or is this a "do as I say, not as I do" instance, where politicians ignore the law while prosecuting the woman in Megan's suicide for ToS violation.
Nice to know they're not hiding the double standard any longer.
Now that it's out in the open, we can openly revolt!
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Why not make person "friend" instead?
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Yay for CDN Privacy Commissioners!
Is there such a thing as a public official whose job it is to protect the citizen's rights, in the 'States?
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Re: Yay for CDN Privacy Commissioners!
Not all of them are very good at it.
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Do you think Obama is the only person with the password to his account, along with hundreds of other public people that have their social identity managed by a marketing firm. Most of the these public figures don't even know the password to their own accounts, it is all managed by a third party.
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Re: Hacking
Unfortunately US Attorneys do not. They've been know to charge people with felony computer hacking for violating a web site's TOS.
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Small Minds
This story or a minor variation on it will be with us for a while.
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What do they hope to find
Fist, most people I know are somewhat discrete about what they post to social networks. Sure, there are cases where people brag about robbing a bank or doing a drug deal, but I think those types of people are probably telegraphing a bunch of other warning signs that there is a problem without any assistance from Facebook.
Second, would the bean counter checking my Facebook status recognize a problem if they saw it? Sure, my bookie, my loan shark, and my drug dealer are all on my friends list. However, FB isn't an ideal environment for arranging drug deals and shady loans, and having friends who do illegal things is not a crime. Where is red flashing light that says there is a problem?
Third, how much of what they find would be actionable or valid in a legal defense about why a person was rejected in the screening process? You might see some things that suggest some problems, but it's unlikely there is going to be enough to prove anything. If you look closely at anyone's social media persona you could probably find lots of things that suggest a problem, but finding actual proof of a problem would be pretty rare.
Finally, having access to the account could backfire big time on the bean counter who demands the password. The law of unintended consequences is likely to kick in. For example, there are a lot of questions that someone being hired for a job is not allowed to ask because just asking the question might show a bias or intention to not hire someone based on some form of discrimination. If the reviewer runs across the answers to the questions they are not allowed to ask, then would the applicant have the right to sue based on discrimination?
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Facebook and politics.
Many inside the party council faction wants Dix (another candidate) to win. Simons belongs to the faction which deposed the last party leader. Reasons to want his facebook passwords includes finding things to use against him, and getting access to who his real friends are. (Like a clients list from a salesman). They have also successfully stalled on giving him access the the party member list so Simons cannot make his case directly to people who can vote in the leadership contest because he does not know who who they are.
So it is a dirty game and they are playing as close to the edge as they can.
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