Wisconsin Assembly backs privacy bill to ban Facebook snooping

Source: Milwaukee Journal SentinelJan.迷你倉 21--MADISON -- The state would ban snooping in the Facebook accounts of job seekers and students, under a privacy bill passed by the Assembly Tuesday.Under another measure passed unanimously by the Assembly Tuesday, the state would drop its telephone do-not-call list for consumers and instead rely on a federal list.The Senate last yearunanimously approved the social media measure to prohibit employers, landlords and colleges from pressuring job seekers, tenants or aspiring college athletes to turn over the passwords to their private social media or email accounts. The Assembly approved it Tuesday on a voice vote, amending it to ensure that employers could still "friend" their employees on sites such as Facebook.The proposal now returns to the Senate.The bill, which has won backing from some business groups for its careful approach, would allow employers and schools to look at applicants' or students' public postings on the Internet.The growth in the Internet and social media is prompting lawmakers around the country to rethink their laws to protect the privacy of their citizens. Rep. Melissa Sargent (D-Madison) said she began working on the bill with Republicans such as Rep. Garey Bies of Sister Bay after speaking with a voter who had a potential employer ask for a password to a social media account."What we're doing is ensuring people can keep their private stuff private," Bies told reporters before the Assembly session.Since last year, dozens of legislatures have either passed or taken up social media legislation to prohibit groups such as employers from demanding that applicants let them see private information online.The proposals have received bipartisan support in many of those states as well as Wisconsin, where the lead sponsors include Sargent, Bies and Sen. Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend).Sargent has said she has heard directly from young constituents who have faced social media questions in employment applications and interviews. The employers weren't just looking at the applicants' public Facebook profile but asking to see information that was part of a private account that could normally be viewed only by the applicant and his or her approved friends.Applicants were free to refuse the request but worried it could儲存倉hurt their chances of getting the position in a tight labor market where good jobs are hard to find, Sargent said.Employers in other states, such as the Maryland Department of Corrections and the City of Bozeman, Mont., have asked for login information and passwords for Facebook on applications or asked employees to log in so the employer can look over their shoulder.The legislation before the Assembly doesn't stop institutions from monitoring what employees or others post publicly using social media. Employers and others also could still regulate what employees do on their work computers and cellphones."This bill cannot protect you from yourself," Sargent cautioned Tuesday.Among the other exceptions, employers could still investigate whether employees had transferred proprietary data to online accounts such as their email.In exchange, the bill would make clear that employers and other groups don't have a duty to check their employees' personal email and other accounts and shouldn't be held liable for not monitoring that private information.Do-not-call list. Eliminating the state's no-call list is expected to save the state $190,000 a year. Consumers will still be protected, supporters say, because the state will have the power to enforce violations if businesses call people who are on the federal list.The bill unanimously passed the Senate in October and passed the Assembly Tuesday 98-0. It now goes to Walker.Under the bill, the 2 million or so people on Wisconsin's list would be transferred to the federal list if they weren't already on it.Under Wisconsin's current program, people have to sign up for the list once every two years to stay on it. The federal list, by contrast, requires that people sign up only once.The Assembly also took up bills Tuesday that would:-- Make it somewhat easier for utilities to meet the state requirement that by 2015 10% of their electricity come from renewable sources of energy such as wind farms or plants burning biomass.-- Allow local governments to pursue marijuana cases dropped by district attorneys.Patrick Marley of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.Copyright: ___ (c)2014 the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Visit the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel at .jsonline.com Distributed by MCT Information Services迷你倉最平