The Importance of Privacy Restrictions and Law

            In April, Maryland passed the first bill ever to disable employers from being able to ask job applicants or employees their social media passwords. This is important because beforehand, employers were technically able to ask the current employees or job applicants for their passwords. This violated the applicants and employees right of privacy on the social networks, but if they were unwilling to do it they might be faced with consequences.

          Imagine if you were faced with the request of providing your Facebook or Twitter passwords. How would you feel regarding the privacy of your pictures, wall posts, tweets and more? How would you feel about your family and friends being accessed by your employers? This would invade their privacy as well without their consent. All of these factors bring about an even bigger question: Does the perception you portray online matter if the presence at your job is outstanding?

            Should it matter that you have pictures of drinking alcohol or partying on the weekends if when you come to work Monday through Friday as a professional.  Does your language and character being portrayed on these social media sites matter if your performance at your job is more than adequate? In my opinion, it should not matter. The way I am being portrayed online in a private setting should not matter if I am a great employee. It is not right for employees to search through my private information just to find something they don't like. The purpose of being an employee is to do well at your job. If I am doing just that, there is absolutely no reason to dig through my private life. After all, I do have a right of privacy from my job.

            This all ties into a law that is being proposed from the Obama Administration, focusing on “Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights” that relates to online users data. It stems from the incident of Google tracking users' location, thus violating their privacy. The bill focuses on providing a sense of trust between the consumers and the businesses, because without it the consumers are very skeptical of the possible use of their private information.  The "Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights" has six sections: transparency, respect for context, security, access and accuracy, focused collection, and accountability. These are all important areas that focus on users use of private information.  The two most important areas involve making sure personal data is handled in the correct way and that it is safe.

           

            It is important that businesses that deal with private user information have laws and restrictions. It is even more important that these users understand that there are laws and restrictions that give them rights over their own privacy. This not only provides a sense of understanding of rights for the users, but also reassurance that their private information is legally in good hands. There are many issues involving privacy and the Internet. It is important that users of the Internet have protection by laws and restrictions so that their information does not get abused.